Barb Saunders quits Melbourne Racing Club board in protest

MRC director Barb Saunders has resigned over concerns about the club’s governance following the chief executive’s sudden removal.

Tom Reilly has been removed as Melbourne Racing Club chief executive.

A senior board member of the Melbourne Racing Club committee has quit in protest over the decision to remove the club’s new chief executive Tom Reilly.

Barb Saunders, the only MRC director with significant board experience and the chair of a key subcommittee, resigned on Monday after raising governance issues.

Melbourne Racing Club board member Barb Saunders has quit in protest. Picture: AAP

In a frank email she sent to other committee members on Saturday, Saunders stated she was opposed to “giving jobs to the boys” and was concerned about the governance of the club.

Saunders raised concerns that the club had given a newly created and highly paid role of chief operating officer to Tanya Fullerton, who was “friends” with members of the committee.

Club sources say that the job – with a $500,000 salary plus bonuses – was created then awarded to Fullerton without the usual corporate process.

Fullerton is friends with Frank Pollio, Belinda Meyers, Robyn Grey and Sheamus Mills, who have all come on to the board in the past seven months.

Questions have also been raised about Fullerton’s lack of experience in managing large teams of staff at a senior level.

And she is not the only “friendly face” to be earmarked for a high-paying job at a club that has been bogged in controversy for some time, sources claim.

A farm manager who works privately for billionaire racing powerbroker Jonathan Munz has been nominated for a newly-created $300,000 part-time position – despite never having worked for a race club – to curate a racecourse.

The appointment of new-broom chief executive Tom Reilly at the start of the year was supposed to be a sign that the troubled club was back on track after years of public controversy and private rumblings about probity and governance.

Reilly was lured from his national role with the Thoroughbred Breeders Australia and Aushorse, where he was a leading figure in breeding and racing for 10 years.

When announcing Reilly’s appointment last December, the new MRC chairman John Kanga said he was delighted to attract Reilly to the club.

He said the club committee was “excited” at hiring someone with “deep racing knowledge and experience” and who was “well respected throughout the racing industry and with his extensive contacts and knowledge, both in Australia and internationally.

“Tom will also bring real strength and energy to the role and, as a true racing person, has a genuine love and passion for the industry. He shares the vision of the committee to make the MRC more efficient and properly accountable to members, customers and participants …”

But late on Monday it emerged that Reilly had been removed.

“Sometimes it just doesn’t work out,” Kanga said in a statement.

“Tom was only chief executive officer for three months and when things don’t go as well as they should, it is best to pivot and move on.”

Originally published as Barb Saunders quits Melbourne Racing Club board in protest