FROM THE SHERIFF'S DESK: A NUMBER OF THINGS STILL HAVE TO BE SORTED BEFORE THIS MATTER GOES AWAY

By John Schreck | Wednesday, June 7, 2017

John Schreck, a former Chief Steward in both Sydney and Hong Kong, has seen both the colourful and the dark sides of racing. His wealth of experience and his deep knowledge of racing matters across the board is unquestioned and the reputation he built as a racing ‘lawman’ remains firmly entrenched in racing’s history. Schreck’s personal blog, ‘From the Sheriff’s Desk', appears exclusively on HRO.

It is important that racing authorities in Queensland learn from the negative experience they have had with the Eagle Farm track which culminated in racing being taken away from that venue and the track being closed for racing indefinitely.

Queensland Racing has now reacted to a directive from Racing Minister Grace Grace by engaging Dale Monteith, a former Victoria Racing Club CEO who I have known for forty odd years, to conduct an independent review of the Eagle Farm track.

The report he has been commissioned to do will of course create a lot of interest.

For that report to be of the desired value it will obviously have to address many different aspects of the Eagle Farm situation and, at the conclusion of Monteith’s work, the report that he submits to the Brisbane Racing Club, Racing Queensland and the Queensland Government will have to be made fully available to the public in the interests of transparency.

Apart from recommendations moving forward, I would expect ... and think it would be essential ... that in that report Dale Monteith will be looking at the reasons for going down the path that the Brisbane Racing Club went down with the Eagle Farm track and he would have to come up with reasons why it has been such an abject failure.

I would be disappointed if that doesn’t happen because that would be the only way to ensure that the mistakes aren’t repeated.

In other words part of the conclusion has to cover ... how, where and why ... and identify those who are responsible. In this aspect the report will certainly not be a witch-hunt in any sense, but the conclusions have to be all encompassing which means it will have to address responsibility issues.

Surely the sport will find itself in an untenable situation if no one is found to be responsible for what has been going on with this debacle?

After what has transpired you cannot leave something like that hanging up in the air.

Make no mistake about it, the on-going track saga has been a massive ‘balls up” and it has had significant effects on Queensland racing to date and will have significant effects into the foreseeable future.

Having nothing positive to show for all for the long, drawn out, expensive Eagle Farm track redevelopment ... along with its associated frustration, disappointment and the inherent compromising of the stakeholder’s position ... cannot be acceptable in any form.

So, there are a number of things that still have to be sorted before this matter will go away.

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Congratulations are due to Rachael Murray on becoming the first female jockey to ride one hundred winners in a season in New South Wales.

Murray created her own bit of history when bringing up that landmark victory at Tamworth on Tuesday. It shows how well female riders are doing ... and they are going to do even better as time goes on.

All of them are naturally light and they have come more and more into their own with strong and excessive whip use being curtailed.

I remember C S Hayes over the years saying that most of the people who looked after the horses at Lindsay Park were females. He told me that the reason he did that was that they were so much kinder to the horses.

A lot of female jockeys are like that. They don’t get them to the line with brute strength. If those days are not gone they are well and truly numbered ... so it is not surprising to see the females doing well.

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Another whip protest ... another ‘protest dismissed’ from Ballarat on Sunday.

It has long been established that stewards, or anybody else for that matter, cannot quantify to what degree the whip use might have affected the result margin in any race ... and it has also been pretty much established that, with one exception to date, stewards are absolutely reluctant to uphold a protest even if the whip rule has blatantly been breached.

So what is the point of it all.

Keep the rule. Punish the rider where needed ... but, for once and for all, let’s take the ‘option to protest’ part out of the whip rule.

It serves no purpose!

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In closing I’d like to wish the Brisbane Turf Club well for Stradbroke Day on Saturday.

It has been a tough carnival for them and, with other distractions, it seems to have passed in the blink of an eye.

Hopefully they can end the carnival with a great days racing as would be befitting of Queensland’s premier race-day.