MY CALL: THE BEN CURRIE CASE: QRIC RAISES THE BAR IN A HIGH STAKES GAME FOR BOTH SIDES

By David Fowler | Tuesday, May 29, 2018

David Fowler is the principal thoroughbred caller for Radio TAB. David, who is a keen form student and punter, has enjoyed a lifetime involvement in the racing media. His personal blog, ‘My Call’, appears exclusively on HRO.

The gravity of the Ben Currie case is unprecedented in Queensland.

While a QRIC missile strike was expected on Monday, the quantity and range of charges issued even caught the most cynical observers by surprise.

Interestingly, several of the 31 charges were captured outside the raceday treatment issues that has seen his father Mark Currie and three stablehands disqualified or suspended over the past seven weeks.

Because of the "in-camera" nature of the protracted inquiry, one can only speculate that these charges were sourced from mobile phone records or compliant witnesses.

Currie has and still maintains innocence so charges that he had a mobile phone "factory reset", denied a racing connected iPad existed and persuaded a stablehand to delete text messages are at odds with this consistent stance.

Currie had the inquiry adjourned to prepare his defence.

Currie has requested a stay of proceedings from QCAT regarding the nomination / acceptance rejection instructed by QRIC.

That stay is likely to be heard on Friday and, if successful, it will be business as usual.

If not, the stable will be only able to exercise the horses until the inquiry's resumption which is likely to be in a fortnight.

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QRIC raised the bar to a critical level yesterday.

Stakes are high for both sides.

And yet Ross Barnett said the end of the road still hasn't been reached.

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The rail will be in the half metre position for the Stradbroke meet on Saturday week.

This gives a fresh pad of grass between 4.5 and 6.5 metres for the circuit compared to Oaks day.

Sunshine Coast has confirmed the rail will be out 10 metres for their Friday meet and back to the true for their Saturday Group 2 and Listed race meet.

Significantly, the Saturday card will also be offered in a later timeslot with the first at 12:40 and the last at 5:50.

This will see the last two races run under lights with the potential for higher turnover with the major interstate meetings put to bed.

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It's worth putting some facts on the table.

Despite the mid-meeting disruption, the Doomben track did not throw up any upset results, before or after.

There wasn't an ounce of bias with placegetters either racing up the front or out the back, railing or coming wide.

And the rather drastic track downgrade (good 3 to soft 6) saw only one late scratching.

That's not opinion, just fact.

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