Entire harness racing board sacked

The Labor Government’s decision to machine gun the entire racing industry this week certainly achieved the essential objective of wiping out the Queensland greyhound board after the live-baiting scandal.

It had to happen. The dogs needed a steel bristled broom through their entire operation.

But the carnage stretched much further than that, too far for the good of racing in this state.

The sacking of the harness racing and galloping boards as well has created widespread uncertainty and, in some areas, total bewilderment.

Take the trots as an example. Like the gallops they had nothing to do with the live-baiting scandal yet they will pay a high price for it.

The cost of implementing new all-code integrity measures such as hiring four policemen, keeping extra data and a full-time integrity commissioner will be hefty and the three racing codes are set to stump up most, if not all of the cost.

Prizemoney could even go backwards as a consequence.

Racing Queensland harness chairman Greg Mitchell was told via a phone call from Racing Minister’s chief of staff that he and his board had been sacked.

Mitchell told the chief of staff he would prefer to hear it directly from Racing Minister Bill Byrne but the request was rejected.

Byrne’s profile during his time in charge has been compared to the Loch Ness monster: often talked about, rarely seen.

Like a lot of harness and galloping board members, Mitchell is feeling like the farmer who saw his homestead burn down because his neighbour forgot to put out his camp fire.

“It’s very disappointing that we are caught up in this given it had nothing to do with our sport,’’ Mitchell said.

“We were just starting to gain momentum. The numbers indicated we were on the rise. Race turnover is the best it has been for seven to 10 years.

“I have grave reservations about what will happen now that our industry will have just one man on the new seven-man board. The board will become very fractious and political.’’

If the trots think they are hard done-by, that is nothing compared to the gallops who will have just one person on the proposed new seven-man board despite generating more than 75 per cent of the annual betting turnover.

Four positions on the new seven-man board will go to specialists in “fields of accounting, law, business, commercial and marketing development’’.

That’s all well and good, but will they know anything about racing? They will, after all, be the powerbrokers of the three codes in this state.

It is a tough, turbulent road ahead and what makes it even tougher is that in less than three years we will probably starting all over again because it will be election time in Queensland.

Such is the one-term way of the world these days that Labor will probably lose power and out will go the men they install.

The racing industry, because it needs so much government funding, is hopelessly at the mercy of the state government.

Racing may be the sport of kings but it is kept alive by thousands of battlers who are famed for their resilience.

That is just as well. Given what is happening in the corridors of power above them, they have to be.

By Robert Craddock

Reprinted with permission of the Courier-Mail