THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN - THE MAGIC MILLIONS RESULT, IT'S NOT OVER YET!

By Graham Potter | Sunday, March 10, 2013

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily

There’s nothing like a good spat to keep the Magic Millions result alive two months after the race was won and lost on the track … and it’s all to do with the sales company’s Racing Women Bonus Incentive program which offered substantial bonus prize-money for the first four finishers in the race owned one hundred percent by women.

There was the predictable hype concerning this incentive in both the build-up and post-race coverage, particularly with Real Surreal winning the race for her all-female ownership team and sending them home with the highest winning cheque in Queensland’s history.

The four Racing Women Incentive bonus amounts for this year’s Magic Millions were allocated on the following basis - $325,000 (first eligible runner home), $100,000 (second), $50,000 (third) and $25,000 (fourth).

The sceptics always wondered about the true worth of the exercise with many taking the view that it would not bring more women into racing, as was its stated aim, but it would merely mean that more horses will be registered in women’s names but, at the end of the day, Magic Millions deemed it to be a worthy promotion in terms of enhancing their brand … and that was their prerogative.

They got a good result as three of the first four horses past the post were female owned … and that seemed to be the end of the story for this year.

Not so!

Enter the owner of the ninth placed filly Greytfilly, who has reported challenged the legitimacy of the ownership of four horses in the race.

Racing Queensland has opened an inquiry into the matter, and the outcome of that could have important consequences, not least of which being that it could lead to a disqualification of any horse whose ownership was not properly registered.

While fully acknowledging the need for true justice for all concerned, that result would be a disaster for racing.

Punters seem to think they can always find a new way for a horse to get beaten. Racing seems to always find a new way to undermine its own image.

My hope is that everybody has done their job properly and all is above board. If it is not, either the players involved or the officials who were charged with overseeing the process, or both, would have done racing a great disservice at a time when it can ill afford a scandal.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. That allegation has yet to be proved.

Due process will be followed with everybody being presumed innocent until any inquiry finds otherwise.

Two final points:

Call me old-fashioned, but I don’t think anybody should be substantially rewarded for finishing ninth.

Taking to its extreme, the current bonus concept could reward someone for finishing last and give them a bigger payout than the connections of horses that have beaten them home.

I haven’t thought it through entirely, but arguably there has got to be a touch of discrimination in there somewhere.

Lastly, I hope Kelso Wood, who trained the Magic Millions winner Real Surreal, doesn’t see his name end up on my list of ironic quotes … like that of Ben Johnson, who when asked after winning the 100m sprint at the Olympics whether the Gold Medal or the record time meant more to him, answered, ‘The Gold Medal. Somebody can always beat my time but they can’t take the medal off me.’

Johnson was subsequently stripped of his medal after failing a drug test.

Trainer Kelso Wood, after winning the Millions, said, ‘It’s been 25 years since I won and lost the last one (on protest) but I’m not going to lose this one.’

I have no favour with any individual party in this dispute, but I do hope Wood is right, if only for racing’s sake.

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