It is easy to believe that Australian Racing Industry and controversy are joined at the hip. They seem to have an almost obscenely magnetic attraction to each other. Barely a week goes by without a new controversy rearing its ugly head over racing.
This time it was the turn of industry broadcaster TVN. In an editorial in the Fairfax press titled “Battle for power stalls new TVN deal”, racing writer Chris Roots (mind if we refer to you as “The Rooter?”), revealed the existence of consultancy contracts held by Victoria Racing Club Chairman Michael Burn and Melbourne Racing Club Chairman Michael Symons, below.
According to “the Rooter’s” report, they had each been paid a monthly $15,000 consultancy fee during the period last year when a failed takeover bid was launched by TVN to takeover Sky Channel. Doesn’t sound quite right, does it, for the Chairmen of the two Melbourne racing Clubs, who are also major shareholders in TVN, to be separately providing paid consultancy services to the very organization in which their Clubs hold major shares?
Let’s be clear about something here: Michael Burn and Mike Symons are investment bankers of some repute. They are passionate racing men and their integrity is not in question. However the “Rooter” tells us that both Symons and Burn have been nominated to be part of the restructured Board of TVN, which Racing NSW (representing the NSW country and provincial sectors), has insisted as a prerequisite before delivering the country and provincial media rights to it. Having insisted on a restructured TVN Board, which seems a very sensible demand, the nomination of both Burn and Symons has, apparently, met with resistance given their controversial consultancies with TVN. To complicate matters further, according to the “Rooter”, Symons and our old mate Racing NSW Chief Executive Peter “The Not So Great” V”landys, “come from opposite ends of many arguments and the Board would be unworkable with both of them sitting on it. Sitting on it???
Mike shows off his teeth.
Pete shows off his bad hair day.
If that is the real reason, then it is total load of crap. The best commercial Boards are those that accommodate a divergence of views. The best commercial Boards don’t demand their members like the members of Robert Mugabe’s cabinet. Robust discussions and debates are the hallmarks of a successful commercial board. Being surrounded by a group of “yes men and women” on the TVN Board is not in the best interests of the industry broadcaster or the racing industry itself. There are some monumental decisions facing TVN and the whole media rights issue which can make or break the future of Australian racing from funding to the future broadcasting of racing and how racing is delivered to the community in every shape and form.
Exclude Michael Burn and Mike Symons from the TVN Board would deprive the new Board of valuable expertise and knowledge, professionally and from a racing perspective, which Australian racing can ill afford to lose. Perhaps there is a more sinister motive. Time will tell.
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IS “FIFTY SHADES” THE MYSTERY TVN CONSULTANT?
The “Rooter’s” Fairfax piece on TVN also contained another interesting revelation: “Sources have also told the Herald (Sydney Morning Herald) another contract delivered a monthly payment of $30,000 to a consultant involved in the network’s (TVN) foundation that has stood since TVN came into existence in 2006. That payment has been stopped. It was one of the reasons Sweeney (TVN CEO Peter Sweeney) lost the support of the stakeholders in TVN”.
The “Rooter” continues – “the consultancy contracts were identified while Racing NSW was carrying out due diligence on TVN”. If nothing else it surely must be acknowledged as one of the more positive exercises undertaken by Racing NSW while our sources having no doubt who that consultant is . Having had an involvement with much of the backroom argy bargy and wheeling and dealing that went on when TVN was established and the bitter feud between Racing NSW and the Race Clubs and, in particular the old AJC and STC , “Fifty Shades” is very long odds on – prohibitive odds to be exact.
“Fifty Shades” has strong connections with the power brokers in Victorian racing. He has been and is very close to a large majority of the Racing Victoria Board past and present. He is close to TVN Chairman, well-known advertising guru and tycoon, and, Packer family confidant Harold Mitchell, and is believed to have been the Shield of Armour behind TVN Chief Executive Peter Sweeney.
From what we have been told by our sources, “Fifty Shades” has long been on the radar of Racing NSW as having exercised a decisive influence on some of the TVN decision making, and particularly in the purchase of racing publications Winning Post and Best Bets. The TVN purchase of the two publications is still the subject of much controversy and angst with the purchase price considered by many to be way over the odds. And it would come as no surprise whatsoever if this “sleeper” turns into an old fashioned “bombshell” in the not too distant future, particularly with the inevitability of a new Board sans Sweeney and Mitchell.
The bigger question is more fundamental. How could TVN justify a monthly payment to a consultant and for what? A monthly consultancy fee of 30 large, for an organization like TVN is downright obscene. We ask aloud what did the consultancy involve? Was it subject to review, how long was the contract for and who assessed the performance of the contractor? And the question that must be asked is what has TVN achieved since “Fifty Shades” has been on their consultancy payroll since 2006?
On face value, it is incumbent on the TVN Board to answer these questions. It doesn’t take an Einstein to work out the mathematics of how much TVN has paid out in consultancy fees to “Fifty Shades” since 2006. The Shareholders of TVN and Racing NSW and Racing Victoria must ask these questions. To Racing NSW’s credit they have started the ball rolling. Over to you Racing Victoria, the ATC and the shareholding Melbourne metropolitan race clubs and their country counterpart.
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TOMMY BERRY SHOWS HIS CLASS.
It’s rare for a jockey to display the grace and cop it on the chin when they have been dumped from the saddle of the Caulfield Cup favourite, particularly when you have just won a feature race on the same horse and with a Group One riding performance to boot. But Tommy Berry, a babe in the woods in age and riding experience in comparison to “the Pumper” Jimmy Cassidy, the jockey who replaces Tommy Berry on the Gai Waterhouse-trained Glencadam Gold showed grace and maturity the way he has handled the news that he must have dreaded.
Win’ lose or draw we believe Gai made the right call. Tommy Berry is clearly on his way right to the top of the jockey ranks. In reality he is perilously close. But he is young, just 22 and in the hustle and bustle of the Melbourne spring racing carnival and in a race like the Caulfield Cup, there is no substitute for experience, and that’s what the “Pumper” brings to the table.
THE PUMPER
Tommy Berry needs to ride at every feature spring racing carnival race meeting in Melbourne to get into the groove of what it is like riding against the best in Australia and the best in the world during the four days of the Melbourne Cup carnival. There is no doubt Tommy Berry will become a “go to” jockey in future Melbourne spring racing carnivals, just like his Sydney counterparts – Hugh Bowman, Corey Brown, Nash Rawiller, Kerrin McEvoy and Jimmy Cassidy have become. Tommy Berry’s turn will come. More than likely it will be in 2013.
While on the subject of jockeys and riding performances, let’s not forget two superb riding performance at Randwick last Saturday – Tommy Berry on Fat Al and Glencadam Gold, and Hugh Bowman on Mourayan and Norzita. They don’t get any better than that, and Hughie Bowman, for our money, is the best jockey in both Sydney and Australia.
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TIME FOR DANNY O’BRIEN T CONCENTRATE ON TRAINING WINNERS?
We’re not alone in believing that Danny O’Brien seriously needs to concentrate on his profession as a racehorse trainer and spare the racing community of what appears to be a petty feud with Flemington Track Manager Mick Goodie and the VRC.
Danny’s latest outburst bemoaning a lack of access to the course proper for gallops for Cups aspirants didn’t exactly strike a sympathy note with his fellow Flemington trainers, or for that matter any of his Victorian counterparts. Perhaps Mick Goodie put it into perspective. “I meet with the trainers group once a month and to my knowledge there are no problems at the moment. You’ll always have people having an issue though when they’re having a lean patch. In all there are nine tracks that they (trainers) can use”, Goodie was quoted as telling The Age’s Michael Sharkie.
To our knowledge O’Brien has only one contender – Prairie Star, the overseas contender who is enjoying the Group One training facility at Werribee, the quarantine facility for visiting international cups horses. The Werribee facilities have been acknowledged as first class, so why would O’Brien be whingeing about training Prairie Star out of Werribee.
We suspect Mick Goodie might just be on the money. It has been a very lean patch for Danny O’Brien. With his private training complex and the well bred and high priced string of horses on his books, his results should be much better. His one time mate Peter Moody in contrast is experiencing a prolonged out break of success at every level – provincial, Saturday metropolitan and at the black type and Group level. Perhaps Danny O’Brien should shift his focus on training winners- and plenty of them- and maybe then his fellow trainers might start to take him seriously. At the present time his fan club numbers are dwindling.
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NIKOLIC “PUNTED” FROM CROWN CASINO AND TO WRITE TELL-ALL BOOK?
The Age newspaper’s Investigative Unit – Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker, who in collaboration with Four Corners exposed the Smoking Aces race fixing scandal, have reported that Danny Nikolic has been banned by Victoria Police from Melbourne’s Crown Casino.
The Casino has been known as the preferred meeting place for many infamous and not so infamous people associated with the underworld, so it is surprising that Victoria Police has obtained an exclusion order against Nikolic. According to the Age report: “it is expected that up to 10 suspected crime figures may be banned from race tracks or the casino in the coming months”. And that “Police also recently moved to ensure that they had the power to ban figures from Victoria’s main harness racing venue at Tabcorp Park in Melton, which is frequented, which is frequented by several well-known underworld players suspected to be involved in doping and racing corruption”.
It leads to believe that Victoria Police have a lot more information about the race fixing than has been made public, and that this information may only be a stone’s throw away from being the basis of some serious legal activity in the coming months.
The report also refers to a proposed book that may be written by Nikolic about his life as a jockey, and that “figures close to Nikolic have approached at least one commercial television program, seeking to sell an exclusive interview with the jockey for tens of thousands of dollars”.
Despite the questionable ethics displayed by many of the television current affairs programs, we would be very surprised if they would enter the dangerous territory of an exclusive interview, particularly in light of the circumstances involved and the very real possibility that charges may be laid in the coming months.
As for a book on his life as a jockey, it would only work if Danny Nikolic was prepared to seriously bare his soul. A tell-all would require just that and would permanently damage relationships and, ultimately, is one of the VERY highest risks he could take.
It’s one of the reasons, tell-alls are best released after the author has departed this life for another, wherever that might be.
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IS IT THE LAST DANCE FOR FRANKIE?
If news filtering through from the UK is right, the Frankie Dettori – Godolphin marriage is heading for divorce. And the grounds could well be “irreconcilable differences”.
Pity, Frankie and the famous Godolphin all blue colours have become an inseparable feature of European and world racing for longer than one can care to remember. It is difficult to think of a more enduring and successful partnership in racing in modern times. Frankie’s loyalty to Godolphin has been without question. And to be fair Godolphin and Sheikh Mohammed have reciprocated. In terms of wealth, Frankie Dettori is one of the wealthiest jockeys around. He has lived in the fast lane and from first-hand experience is great company and a darn good mate – down to earth despite all his well-known flamboyance.
But in racing as in life very little lasts forever. The news earlier in the European flat racing season that French whiz kid Mikhail Barzelona had signed up with Godolphin was a clear signal that Frankie’s tenure as its number one jockey was on life support. Last weekend, Frankie had a rare booking for Coolmore to ride its champion 3-year-old Camelot in the Arc. The mail from the UK suggests that Barzelona will be appointed Godolphin head rider for the 2013 European flat racing season. It would confirm what many already know.
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