Transcript

ONLINE VERSION – OFF TRACK

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: October 2017 and Royal Randwick is host to the inaugural running of the Everest – the richest turf race in the world.

PETER V’LANDYS: We aimed this Everest for the under 35’s and it worked. The reason we made it because this generation, the under 35’s, they want an event of their own. They don’t want to do what their mums and dads do. They don’t like tradition.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: In Australia there’s a race somewhere every day except Christmas day. The prize pool has almost doubled in the past decade. It’s become one of the biggest industries in the country employing more than 50-thousand people.

BRYAN MARTIN: The whole idea is to bring in this new brand of racing to appeal to a younger generation, to get people to the races for that particular day. A lot of people take the stand that it’s, um, rich boys and their toys, because it’s expensive to play.

PETER V’LANDYS: It’s a balance between the money and the culture. My duty is to maximise the prize money that’s available, but at the end of the day it’s a competition sport.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: But beneath the glitz and glamour – there are fears racing is heading off track. On many courses crowds are down and integrity issues are shaking the faith of those who’ve dedicated their lives to the sport.
BRYAN MARTIN: Once punters lose confidence in the sport, the whole system breaks down, because without punters, racing doesn’t exist. Without owners who put on the show, racing doesn’t exist.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: For nearly 40 years Bryan Martin was the voice of racing in Victoria.

BRYAN MARTIN: ‘…Omagh, Fields of Omagh…’

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: In 2003 he even called his own horse home in the Cox Plate.

BRYAN MARTIN: ‘You’ve done it, yes! Fields of Omagh he’s done it,’

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Bryan Martin retired last year after a career that saw him call 29 Melbourne Cups.

BRYAN MARTIN: Now Michael this is the Holy Grail, this is the one that we all aspire.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: This is the Cox Plate?
BRYAN MARTIN: This the Cox Plate, yeah, this is the one we want to win, and we got it, on two occasions.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Give us a look?
BRYAN MARTIN: Yeah, there you go.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Oh, beautiful isn’t eh?
BRYAN MARTIN: How about that!
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: I bet that’s worth a lot to you?
BRYAN MARTIN: Yeah, it means so much to us and all the owners collectively. It’s fantastic.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Yeah beautiful thing.
Few understand the emotional attachment people have to racing more than Bryan Martin

BRYAN MARTIN: It’s a great industry. It’s a fantastic sport. It’s made up of fabulous people that, you know, who else would get up at four o’clock in the morning and-and-and be out training a horse that can run at the Picnics?

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Some of those passionate people say they’re being forced out of the industry they love.

DEBBIE PREST: All we seem to be doing is focusing on prize money. To us, it’s not the money, it’s the fact that we can get out there, go to the races, enjoy our animals.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Debbie Prest has been a country trainer for forty years. Canowindra is a long way from the fancy frocks and champagne of the big city race circuit. Compared to Everest this isn’t even racing’s base camp. Country trainers like Debbie say the big money in the city isn’t enough – now the top trainers are coming for the country money too, and pushing them out of the industry.

DEBBIE PREST: We’re not blow ins. We’ve been here for ever. I just think they don’t have an understanding of how much people put into it. You know, I’m not interested in flash cars, flash houses or anything else. I’m only interested in my horses. Means everything. Apart from my grandkids of course. But they love the horses too. So, sorry.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: What’s this one’s name Debbie?

DEBBIE PREST: Supreme Lyn.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: And where did you get her from?

DEBBIE PREST: We bought her out in a paddock in Yass for 500 dollars she was with fifty starving broodmares

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Wow, so she was in pretty bad condition?

DEBBIE PREST: Very bad condition yeah

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Now she’s a good racer?

DEBBIE PREST: Yeah she’s won, she run second at Gosford, she’s run second at Orange, yeah, very happy with her.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Today Debbie Prest is driving her horses an hour and a half up the road to the Bathurst races.

DEBBIE PREST: There are huge days, yes they are. On the weekend we did the Bourke run – we did Tullibigeal picnics on the Saturday. Came home, did all the jobs, went to bed for a short amount of time, got up and did all the jobs and went to Bourke.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The prize money at Bathurst has increased 30% in the last year. The purse on offer today is a big draw card. $22,000 for a win. A few years ago it was half that. You’d think that would be welcome – it’s not.

DEBBIE PREST: I was talking to one fellow at Dubbo – he’s a professional trainer and he said the influx of the provincial and metropolitan trainers has cost him half his income. And his owners won’t be buying new horses they’ll be getting out because they’re all you know, 60-plus and they can’t afford to buy the sort of horse you need to compete against these fellas.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: City trainers are here in force at Bathurst today and Debbie Prest doesn’t expect to do well.

DEBBIE PREST: Reasonably I can expect to run midfield. We call it a country win, you run 5th beaten by 4 city trainers.

COMMENTATOR: So let’s look at the runners in race number three at Bathurst. Senioritaville – Debbie Prest trained at Cootamundra.

DEBBIE PREST: Hawkesbury so that’s a provincial trainer. This is it, so Westlink is Dubbo horse, a Sydney horse won it. Buffy is Gary Portelli, and Westlink … 4321, three is Brad Widdup -so Sydney.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: As predicted all her horses are beaten today by city trainers.

PETER V’LANDYS: You have to appreciate that metropolitan trainers also have horses that are of a country standard. You can’t discriminate against an owner because he has a slower horse that’s not competitive in the metropolitan area. He’ll go into the country because that’s where he’s competitive. Racing is a competitive sport. It’s not an entitlement sport, just because you’ve got a slow horse, means you’ve got to get prize money.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: But even with the increased competition from city-based trainers and more prize money, on most race days here in the country the atmosphere at the track isn’t what it once was.
SPECTATOR: Yeah it’s pretty short on interested spectators. I was interested today there’s three bookies here today, usually there’s only one.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Three bookies, you’ve almost got one each.

SPECTATOR: Well, that’s pretty much it.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The racing prize pool in Australia has grown to over 600 million dollars. More than a third of that is won by just the top 20 trainers. More than 3-thousand others compete for the rest and as the purse continues to grow the competition gets tighter.
Racing is built on gaming, and central to that is what the industry calls integrity. If you can’t trust the system then then bet is punters will take their dollars elsewhere. Few things have tested racing integrity quite like the recent scandal described as one of the darkest chapters in Australian racing history.
BRYAN MARTIN: Seeing a scandal like this make the front page of the newspapers, not only here in Victoria, but around Australia. It compares with Big Philou, the doping of Big Philou which was detected 40 minutes before the running of the Melbourne Cup in 1969. It had all sorts of ramifications. Uh, you go back to 1984, and the substitute of Fine Cotton you know, for a horse a much better performed horse, a ring in. Uh, and again, this was, this was headlines. But this certainly does rank, rank right up there with it. Not that it’s a popularity poll, who had the best rort. But this-this-this is … this is … this is a big one.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: It was the spring carnival at Flemington, one of the premier race meets of the year. The big trainers were all chasing big money but Robert Smerdon’s horses were considered the ones to beat.
When they opened the gates here at Flemington on October the 7th last year the crowds were expecting a big day. The legendary Wynx was lining up to win her 21st race. But Robert Smerdon’s winning streak was about to come to an end. And what happened here that day with one of his horses would send a shockwave through the entire racing industry.
With the crowd diverted by the arrival of Wynx, a stablehand led the Smerdon-trained mare Lovani into the swab box. A racing steward was watching. The stablehand – Greg Nelligan – removed a syringe from a yellow bag and attempted to plunge the contents into the horse’s mouth.
BRYAN MARTIN: I just shook my head. I thought, I can’t believe this-this has happened, uh, for such a high profile, uh, name and people that I’ve known in racing most of my working life. To think that, um, this deception was happening behind our back. And under the nose of the stewards too.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The syringe held a pink paste containing sodium bicarbonate. Sodium bicarbonate boosts stamina by smothering lactic acid. To be most effective a horse is given a dose within three hours of a race and then topped up with another as close to the race as possible. Administering sodium bicarb on race day is completely illegal.

MATHEW ELLERTON: The audacity of being on the race course itself, that was probably my biggest shock that they were doing it under everyone’s nose, on course, systematically. Yeah it was extraordinary. You know you couldn’t have made it up really.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: As he began to dope the horse, Nelligan was confronted by the steward. He tried to hide the syringe but the game was up. His phone was seized, and he was taken to the stewards room. The transcript of that meeting obtained by Four Corners shows initially Nelligen claimed the doping was all his doing. He was questioned by the stewards including chief steward Terry Bailey.

TERRY BAILEY (ACTOR): So what’s the incentive for you to

GREG NELLIGEN (ACTOR): None.

TERRY BAILEY (ACTOR): – go out on a limb and treat a horse at the races?

GREG NELLIGEN (ACTOR): Nothing really.

TERRY BAILEY (ACTOR): There’d have to be some sort of incentive. Mr Smerdon didn’t instruct you to do it?

GREG NELLIGEN (ACTOR): No. Mr – I – I should apologise to Mr Smerdon. He knows nothing

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Greg Nelligan’s phone showed otherwise. It held a record of 70 thousand texts saved over seven years. The texts between Nelligan and Smerdon revealed a systematic plan to dope horses just before races. The texts talk of ‘top-ups’ to refer to the trackside bicarb treatment
Like this one sent in 2014 at Sandown:
Smerdon to Nelligan: ‘Top up for Bruntwood and Celeritas?

Nelligan: ‘Yes’
Bruntwood runs second, Celeritas wins.
And this one, the day before the Ararat races Nelligan: ‘4 tops tomorrow’
Nelligan replies: ‘Ok’
Smerdon: ‘Tops for Ungrateful Ellen, Barcode and Killara Miss Please.’
Ungrateful Ellen and Killara Miss win. Barcode runs second
As the stewards began questioning the stablehand Greg Nelligan, Robert Smerdon was confronted and taken to the investigation room. The handling of him that day has raised serious questions about how investigations are conducted and Racing Victoria’s commitment to integrity.
These days every investigation begins with phone records and an examination of the digital communications trail they might reveal. Greg Nelligen’s phone, confiscated on the day in the swab box provided more than a thousand incriminating messages. But, remarkably, the transcript of the initial investigation obtained by Four Corners shows the chief steward decided to give Robert Smerdon his phone back.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: We will never know what was on Robert Smerdon’s phone, but It’s a decision Racing Victoria’s Chief Executive says he’s comfortable with.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Why was Robert Smerdon’s phone handed back to him?

GILES THOMPSON: As I say, I cannot comment on the specifics of that case, but you and I were not in that room and those investigators are dealing with the facts that are before them.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Well, alright. I mean I do have the transcript from that, where basically the chairman says “Mr Smerdon, obviously we don’t want you to have the inconvenience of not having your phone, is there anything else you’d like to tell us?” and he hands the phone back. I mean, it does seem pretty odd in an investigative procedure to hand somebody’s phone back.

GILES THOMPSON: As I say, we have the luxury of hindsight, he didn’t have the luxury of hindsight. I’m very comfortable that our stewards and our investigators are highly skilled and highly experienced. They deal with the facts and the circumstances that they face before them at the time.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: We know that they didn’t access Robert Smerdon’s phone. They gave it back to him, which, in hindsight’s pretty surprising, isn’t it?

BRYAN MARTIN: God, how’s that happen? Yeah. That’s hard to believe.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The texts on Greg Nelligan’s phone also suggest someone from within Racing Victoria’s integrity unit was leaking information about pre-race blood testing via an unnamed trainer.

BRYAN MARTIN: Well, if it’s come within the regulator, the state regulator, which is Racing Victoria. Like, that’s appalling, if that’s proven.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Racing Victoria says it hasn’t been able to determine how that tip off was made.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Do you know who the trainer was? I mean, I presume you do?

GILES THOMPSON: As I say, the independent report concluded that it could not determine who that tip off, or how that tip-off was made.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Who produced the tip-off to the trainer, is that what you’re saying? But you know who the trainer was, has the trainer been questioned or charged?

GILES THOMPSON: I know what the text says-

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Yeah.

GILES THOMPSON: But that text is again, is alluding to something, it is not sufficient evidence on something. So what we’ve done is launched an independent investigation and unfortunately, one way or another, have not found any further evidence to continue that line of inquiry.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: After a 7-month investigation Robert Smerdon and seven others were found guilty by the racing board of 271 offences.
On the strength of the texts found on the stablehand’s phone – Nelligan, his wife Denise and trainer Robert Smerdon were all banned for life.
Robert Smerdon is appealing against his conviction.

PETER V’LANDYS: It affects the image, no doubt about that. And when you’re, you know, on the front pages of the Melbourne and Sydney papers it’s not a good look for racing. It’s a national product and it’ll have consequences.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The scandal and the investigation have left those who live and breathe racing incredulous.
Ralph Horowitz: Another terrific performance by Miss Leonardis, Dwayne Dunn really summed up the speed here, he just stalked it

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Those who study the form professionally say there was a pattern of suspicious behaviour that the stewards should have taken more seriously.
Ralph Horowitz: Race 5 in the program was won by Widgi Turf, now here’s a horse we’ve been a fan of for a long long time now…

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Ralph Horowitz is what’s called a form analyst. Racetrack Ralphy – as he’s known in the business – has studied every Victorian race since boxing day 2011.

RALPH HOROWITZ: I study horse racing form, the biggest learning experience for me is perhaps that it’s all about how fast they run, so data, not what you see to your eye, because it’s a race. And the facts are the Robert Smerdon team were winning races through the roof ahead of market expectations.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The results of Robert Smerdon’s last 50 races were substantially better than his career form. His average win rate had increased from 15% to 20%. He’d also been found guilty of a number of integrity offences. Ralph Horowitz questions why Racing Victoria didn’t take a closer look at Robert Smerdon’s Aquanita racing team earlier.

RALPH HOROWITZ: You have to shake your head and say how come we’re not hearing questions about the processes all the way through, and it could make perfect sense. It could make perfect sense why this story was missed for so many years. But, this didn’t come from nowhere. Robert Smerdon had transgressions that are on the record in 2012, in 2013 and in other times, and relatively, hit with light fines. So in hindsight, they look very very light. So let’s find out why these things happened for so long, let’s find out why ultimately punters and participants were dudded.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Respected Trainer Mat Ellerton rarely speaks publicly but he feels so aggrieved by the Aquanita scandal he agreed to speak to Four Corners. In 2011 his horse was beaten by a long odds Smerdon-trained horse. The race was worth 350-thousand dollars. A win at that level can make a big difference in the price when it’s time to breed.

MATHEW ELLERTON: Can mean a lot of money between running first or second. Does leave a bitter taste in your mouth, to know that they were cheating to that extent.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: That same year Ellerton witnessed a suspicious unloading and loading of Smerdon trained horses at the racetrack. He reported it to the stewards.

MATHEW ELLERTON: Of course, yeah. What they did, I don’t know. But obviously now we do know they were treating horses on course. Yeah, it’s pretty hard to stomach really, when that’s your opposition.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Nothing was done.

GILES THOMPSON: Well, I think what we have to do, is we have to act on evidence. We can only prosecute with evidence that we’re comfortable will lead to a prosecution. We cannot act on hearsay, or assumption. We can only act on facts and information and evidence that we have before us.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: If trainers like yourself have lost a lot of money out of this, would you like to see it go further? Would you like to see maybe criminal charges laid?

MATHEW ELLERTON: It’s an interesting one, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s a tough one, that. I wouldn’t be disagreeing with that, if it did go further.

RALPH HOROWITZ: How anyone could look at this situation and say, well that’s it, all done, well done we’ve got the guilty people, and move on, just has you shaking your head. Because if you’re fair dinkum, you say how did this happen for so long, what processes were in place that failed the racing industry, failed punters, failed the horses who, failed owners of horses who got beaten. There’s a ground swell of people in this industry who haven’t walked away, by the way, people that are still in it saying, hang on, we got dudded, and we need more answers.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Racing Victoria’s investigative procedures have been questioned before.
Danny O’Brien: I grew up in rural Victoria, and my father was a hobby horse trainer and breeder

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Trainer Danny O’Brien is one of the biggest names in Victorian racing.
Danny O’Brien: I’ve been at Flemington now for about 20 years and in these particular stables for a little over ten.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: In 2015 racing stewards raided the stables of Danny O’Brien and two other trainers. Several of their horses had tested positive to a blood boosting agent called cobalt.

DANNY O’BRIEN: It led the news that night. And there was an eight-page wraparound in the Herald Sun the next day, so was pretty clear to everyone very quickly that it was going to take a long road to try and clear this up. My son was actually at a friend’s place that night. And unfortunately, he saw that report and he came home. And he was only seven years old. He said, “Dad, are you going to be going to jail?”

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: He says the treatment of him was very different to the approach racing officials took with Robert Smerdon

DANNY O’BRIEN: They came in with an IT forensic team, they imaged my phone, they imaged my tablet, they imaged every computer in the office including our server so they had every email, every text that for yeah, many, many years previous that had been transmitted by me or by anyone in my office. For basically two days we had an IT lockdown here where they imaged every device that was used in our business.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: It does seem they were treated rather differently.

GILES THOMPSON: Well they’re different- totally different circumstances and totally different cases, so to compare the two, as I say, they are dealing with the circumstances laid before them at the time, and they would treat them differently, there’s no doubt about that.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: But they’re both investigations about potential interfering with a horse in a particular way. They said that they were swooped on by the digital team, and they spent two days with them?

GILES THOMPSON: I’m not sure what those trainers have said, but the cases are fundamentally different in every aspect, so to line up the two and say they have been investigated in different way is no surprise to me. So they should be.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: So the phone records in that case were more important than the phone records in this case?

GILES THOMPSON: As I say-

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: I mean I think that’s the point they’re saying.

GILES THOMPSON: As I say, the investigations were completely different, the cases are completely different, and to line the two up and compare one to other, isn’t an appropriate way of considering it.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: As the investigation continued O’Brien and the other trainers discovered the vet they shared had been administering the cobalt without their knowledge.

DANNY O’BRIEN: Cobalt itself is an element. And it’s in many, many things. It’s a big item in the middle of a B-12 molecule, for one. My horses accumulated positives from a veterinary drip that they were given for recovery, that had VAM and B12 and other ingredients in it.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Danny O’Brien was banned for four years. He appealed and after a lengthy multi-million dollar legal battle he was cleared of the charge of knowingly administering cobalt. The judge accepted that the vet had acted without the trainers knowledge. That appeals judge also found that Racing Victoria had substantially departed from its own testing requirements.
DANNY O’BRIEN: It’s been a very difficult three years. The duration, as much as anything. Obviously, we got a great outcome. We couldn’t have been more exonerated by the judgement that Justice Guard handed down, but the length of time it took has really affected our business. Yeah. We would have half the amount of horses that we had three years ago. With that, you know, it’s a lot more difficult to get results. You need a volume of quality horses in this industry to keep winning big races. Unfortunately, yeah we’ve really struggled to do that, over the last three years. We’re on our way back now. I’m sure we’ll get back there, but it’s more been the length of time, than anything.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Observers like Ralph Horowitz say many in the racing game believe the industry body simply hasn’t done enough, isn’t interested in asking more questions and appears too keen to move on.
RALPH HOROWITZ: It is spin city, honestly, any political party would probably be envious of their ability to spin. The people in racing are great people, the majority. Great people, great hard-working people. But when they’re fed spin, and self-congratulatory stuff and after people have been found guilty, they’re calling bull dust.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: In racing image is everything – doping scandals are bad enough, but the industry knows it also has a continuing problem with the public’s perception of animal treatment. Two years ago Racing NSW boss Peter V’landys warned breeders they couldn’t continue with business as usual.
PETER V’LANDYS: I get 100 emails a day from the animal liberationists they haven’t gone away. One of the reasons the New South Wales government wants to keep the greyhounds is because we’re the next on line for the animal liberationists. If you think we’re not, you’re kidding yourself because we are. The whip issue, the wastage issue, the 2-year-old racing issue the amount of times a horse races they’re all on the table.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The fate of horses deemed no longer competitive or those that have run their last race is known as wastage. What happens to them troubled some so much they can no longer stay in the industry.

PETER SHEPPARD: It’s really gone out of my system and I have some regrets I had some joyous times, really joyous times and some heartbreak times. And I wasn’t overly comfortable in the racing environment for a lot of reasons. I believe that money is a curse and can be and it brings out the worst in people on some occasions and I didn’t particularly like that.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Peter Sheppard built his fortune selling women’s shoes – he spent quite a bit of that fortune on racing. Over the years he owned some impressive winners.
PETER SHEPPARD: This is Tristarc winning the Caulfield Cup back in 1985. This horse here, Wolvette, that’s one of the first my wife and I bought on our own. She was second top weight filly in Australasia.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Peter Sheppard says the truth is most horses won’t make the grade and there are too many horses being bred for racing.
PETER SHEPPARD: If you’ve got new horses that you’ve bred, say, two-year-olds coming in, you needed the room. Like you just can’t sort of have a …we had 16 stables, 16 boxes as they call them. We couldn’t suddenly leave those 16 and then build another four or five each year. So – and to keep those because they weren’t going to win anyway. They weren’t going to win any prize money. There’s just nowhere for them to go. Giving them away to the lovely young girl who wants to do equestrian was damn near impossible. It was one of the reasons why I got out of it. I didn’t like that.

DR BIDDA JONES: I think we’ve got a big problem with the number of foals that are produced by the thoroughbred racing industry every year in Australia. That number’s actually gone down in the past 10 years, but there are about 13,000 thoroughbred foals that are born every year. We’ve got about 2000 of those foals don’t make it into racing – that’s an issue right from the beginning. You know, what’s happening to those foals? We’ve got about eight and a half thousand adult horses that are exiting racing every year, so we still don’t know what’s happening to those horses. The efforts that racing authorities are making to try and retrain or find homes for those horses, the numbers aren’t there, so that’s a lot of horses that the industry needs to be dealing with. What’s happening to those horses?
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: This is where some of those horses end up. On the edge of Echuca on the Victorian New South Wales border you’ll find one of the biggest horse saleyards in the country.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Today the kill buyers are out in force. The sad reality is this is the beginning of the end for hundreds of racehorses that are too old, too slow or just not good enough to race. Some of the thoroughbreds sold here will end up as pet food or on tables in Europe and Japan.

DR BIDDA JONES: If you’re selling an ex-racehorse for $500 it’s probably going to an abattoir.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: New South Wales recently introduced a ban on sending horses to knackeries and abattoirs.

PETER V’LANDYS: The objective is that no horse that races or is domiciled in New South Wales – doesn’t have to get to a racecourse but if it’s born, bred, domiciled predominantly in New South Wales, we’ll need to find a home.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: But when Four Corners went to the Echuca sales we filmed at least two New South Wales racehorses – they were both bought by kill buyers
DR BIDDA JONES: Seeing a horse at a sale yard is never a good thing, like that’s a horse really that’s lost its value in terms of what it was bred for. An abattoir is for human consumption, knackery is for pet food and other purposes
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Australia only has two horse abattoirs – one in South Australia and this one at Caboolture in Queensland. Many of the horses here have racehorse branding.

DR BIDDA JONES: The idea of actually pushing horses out of New South Wales to end up going on another journey to get to an abattoir because of a rule that’s been created to try and stop that from happening, well, that – you haven’t solved your problem.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The RSPCA says banning horses from abattoirs is not a good answer to the wastage problem. The process needs to be humane, but the alternative can be even worse.

DR BIDDA JONES: I think if you have the choice between a horse being neglected in a paddock for years, because they aren’t being cared for properly, or they’re going straight to an abattoir and being humanely slaughtered, you shouldn’t be ruling out that an option.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: This vision is just one of many cases the RSPCA has dealt with in recent years.
This horse was bred by millionaire businessman Gerry Harvey and sold on through several owners. The RSPCA found the mare starving in a paddock. In late 2015 the RSPCA found this chestnut mare – she’d won more than $100 thousand dollars in racing prize money but despite the best efforts of rescuers she collapsed and died of starvation.

DR BIDDA JONES: A large proportion will end up with nowhere to go and the industry has to find a solution for that that’s acceptable. I think the industry needs to start actually publishing the information that they have, and accurately tracing horses from birth to death.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Rule changes introduced in 2016 now require owners to notify Racing Australia when they initially sell or give away their horses. Dr Jones says the research done so far on those figures is unreliable – because the industry only tracks the first transfer of ownership. Horses often get sold on several times and the RSPCA says what happens to many of them is still a mystery.
DR BIDDA JONES: We don’t know. That’s the answer. We still don’t know. we’re relying on surveys of trainers and breeders to tell us where horses go. The industry has funded a few of those, but we still actually don’t have an accurate number of say the horses that go from racing to knackeries or abattoirs.
PETER V’LANDYS: That’s a weakness in our system, and that’s why we want to check the horses six months later.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Peter V’landys admits the system isn’t perfect but says New South Wales racing is introducing a program of random follow up checks.

PETER V’LANDYS: We’re going to take random checks where we’re just going to send a vet or one of our stewards out to see where that horse is. It might be 12 months later, it might be 6 months later, but we want to know how you’ve looked after that horse. So we’re not going to stop once the horse has been given to somebody else. We’re going to expand it to the next level where we want to know if the horse is having a good retirement.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Despite the 2016 rule change the RSPCA says seizures of ex racehorses and prosecutions have continued around the country. A sport involving animals will inevitably have welfare challenges. New South Wales racing boss Peter V’landys has been warning for years they need to tackle them. And one of the biggest issues is the continuing use of the whip.
PETER V’LANDYS: Even though I’m a supporter of the whip everywhere I go any young person I speak to they say you should ban the whip. You will not be relevant in 10 years unless you address these welfare issues. You can come in here and – unless you are willing to change with society you will perish. Absolutely there’s resistance. To change anything in the racing industry is difficult. We have to address the whip issue no doubt about that, because people looking at it don’t realise it’s a padded whip, don’t realise it doesn’t hurt the horse. So you have to do something about it because you go and ask a 16-year-old girl watching a race, not knowing those facts, she doesn’t like it.

DR BIDDA JONES: The idea of hitting horses repeatedly with a whip, if you took them off a racetrack and you did that to them in another setting, then the RSPCA could prosecute you for doing that.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: So far though all attempts to convince racing to even trial whip free races have failed. The next emerging welfare problem for the racing world could be the application of what’s called tongue ties.
DR BIDDA JONES: I think people would be horrified if they understood what a tongue tie is. I mean, I was horrified. I’d heard about them, and then it was explained to me exactly what’s involved.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: This video shot by ‘Horses and People Magazine’ shows how tongue ties are applied. It’s said tongue ties allow the horse to take in more air while racing.
They are now used on more than 20 per cent of Australian racehorses.

DR BIDDA JONES: So a tongue tie is basically a big elastic band. In order to put it on a horse, you’ve got to open their mouth, grab hold of their tongue, really grip it hard, pull this elastic band over it, twist it around so it’s tight around the tongue, and then get the rest of the elastic band underneath the jaw. When you see it from the outside, all you see is this band underneath the jaw, you can’t see what’s going on in the mouth, but this tongue – their tongue is being held tight by this band for the entire period that they’re out on the racetrack. That’s cutting off the blood supply.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: The racing industry is acutely aware that their welfare practices are being watched. They are reluctant to act against industry wide practices like the whip and tongue ties. Although New South Wales Racing has decided to act on one welfare issue and struggling country trainers say they’ve been unfairly targeted.

DEBBIE PREST: Here you go, can you just give her a couple of laps please?

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Debbie Prest asked us to meet her and other country trainers at her local racetrack in Canowindra – in central western New South Wales to show us how they train their horses.

DEBBIE PREST: Some people are just devastated, because that’s their only way. They might have an infirmity or a bit older. Like we’re all getting older and it’s just an easy way to keep our horses fit and competitive.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Leading a horse from a vehicle is now technically illegal on a racetrack, a ruling they say is symptomatic of the city centric view in the racing industry

DEBBIE PREST: We believe that it’s just the beginning of the end for country, because once they ban something outright like that with no consultation, or review, what else can they do to us? And that’s what is worrying everybody on the ground at the moment.

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: For country trainers this is more than a technicality. The man to the right is

Wayne Martin – he was suspended for 6 months for training his horse from a car.
WAYNE MARTYN: I’ve gotta have the horses fit. That’s the only way I can get the horses fit to race.

KYLIE KENNEDY: I’ve been training like this for 14 years, I’ve trained over 130 winners, horse of the year four times, and they’ve all been trained out of the car. Wayne didn’t do what he had to do to make his horses go quicker like using drugs and something like that. He’s basically had to do it, as he’s been left with no other option than to just try and keep his horses fit.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Why did you do that?
PETER V’LANDYS: Because it’s a death trap. It’s very unsafe, cruel to horses, but just as importantly, a danger to participants and a danger to the public. We received an email where a car nearly ran over a horse and a trackwork rider. It nearly sent them over the fence. Horses and cars don’t mix, and the speed they were going at is very very dangerous. If you were trailing a horse at 40 kilometres an hour, well, a horse only goes around that speed and that horse slips, it’ll get dragged. That’s not a good look for racing. I’d prefer you to be here telling me why didn’t I do something because the track work rider died or a horse was dragged with a broken neck than saying you know, why did I ban it?

MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Country trainers say this could drive them out of the industry for good. Track riders are almost impossible to find in the bush.

LEO HARLAND: People think we dumb out here in the bush but we are not as stupid as they think we are. If V’Landys don’t let this go, let us back in that’s going to be finish of the bush, because no city jockey wants to come out to us. They make better money in Sydney
KYLIE KENNEDY: When the bar occurred, I had about 14, 15 horses in work, and I had to cut down to five. Because my track work rider had to go to work at 8 o’ clock in the morning so that’s all we could get work, so I had to turn the rest out so financially I’ve lost owners, I had to turn all my horses that I own myself out, so it really put me behind. I had to sell my car to get through the first few months and stuff like that, ’til I could get back on track.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: If racing is to prosper in the country and the city it will need to get its house in order.
DANNY O’BRIEN: People are leaving this sport in droves, as far as commercially we’ve just lost Emirates. We’ve lost Longines who were a sponsor racing worldwide. They’ve just walked away from Victorian Racing as well as Emirates.
MATHEW ELLERTON: I’ll say it’s a work in progress. I think most of the time they’re probably doing a good job but there’s always room for improvement. Most of my peers are abiding by the rules of the game. You know, it’s that rogue element that probably always exists within a gambling culture. Perception is a big thing and the average joe – the perception of the racing industry is it’s full of cheats, I suppose.
PETER V’LANDYS: Anyone that says they can’t do better is kidding themselves. Of course, we can do better, and we’re going to try to do better, and we’re motivated and driven to do better.
MICHAEL BRISSENDEN: Later this year the ‘Everest’ will be run with a record purse of 13 million dollars. Prince Harry and his new bride are tipped to appear to underscore the royal at the Royal Randwick racecourse. Racing hopes the public will look past the recent scandals and turn out in big numbers to prove that the sport hasn’t lost its magic.

BRYAN MARTIN: We seem to get knocked from pillar to post one scandal after another. But racing always seems to recover. It’s very resilient. It has a way of finding its way back on its feet. The passion and the love for the sport never dies. It’s curable only by death.