Threats to stewards show Australian racing engaged in serious fight

Racing relishes a whiff of sulphur, a touch of nod-and-wink roguery to add to its colourful pot. But when the Melbourne Cup is run in the early hours of tomorrow morning there will be a sinister smell of cordite thrown in too.

Last week six shots from a semi-automatic rifle were fired through the front door of Terry Bailey’s house in the Melbourne suburbs. Bailey is Racing Victoria’s chief steward, in charge of racing integrity in the state. He was at the back of his house with his wife and young children at the time and no one was injured.

A week prior to that another Racing Victoria official reportedly saw a man wearing a skull bandana over his face while parked outside his house. The official was sufficiently alarmed to report the incident. Security has been provided to both officials and other RV integrity personnel.

Bailey in particular is credited with cracking down on breaches of racing’s rules in recent years, showing a willingness to expose the industry’s seedy underbelly and has said he has no doubt the shooting is connected with his job.

Ahead of the race which famously stops a nation, and showcases Australian racing to the world, headlines about criminals attacking the man entrusted with implementing the rulebook are a PR nightmare, especially since they’re only the latest in a series of controversies that have bedevilled the sport Down Under.

It was only last year that new rules preventing the use of anabolic steroids on horses out of competition took effect. Prior to that, overseas victories, such as Black Caviar’s famous Royal Ascot success in 2012, had been called into question over the use of steroids in Australia.

Finished sixth

Later in 2012 perhaps the country’s most famous jockey, Damien Oliver, was banned for 10 months for placing a winning $10,000 bet on a rival horse in a race in which he finished sixth.

The reverberations from Oliver, twice a Melbourne Cup winner, including on the Irish-trained Media Puzzle in 2002, breaking the rules were huge in terms of negative headlines but they pale in comparison to what potentially lies in store over doping.

Misuse of the naturally occurring element cobalt has been likened to EPO in terms of its capacity to increase red blood cells, improve oxygen capacity and thus performance. Cobalt occurs naturally in horses but excessive amounts in the system can lead to serious side-effects.

Up to 30 trainers all over Australia have been involved in doping investigations, as well as vets and some racing officials. One trainer in New South Wales has already been banned for 15 years. Five high-profile Victorian trainers, including Black Caviar’s trainer, Peter Moody, face charges over excessive cobalt levels in some of their horses.

It is a bleak picture and undoubtedly confirms stereotypical images in the wider public mind of bandy-legged syringe-wielding horsey types carving up what is supposedly the sport of kings.

It is a scenario that other sports will understand only too well since it contains a dilemma all too common in the struggle against cheating. It’s hard not to suspect that those in charge of major sports like athletics, cycling, football, cricket have at some stage juggled with the ethical dilemma of whether or not negative headlines, which are the inevitable consequence of properly trying to root out the cheats, are worth it when keeping the boat resolutely unrocked allows things to keep chugging along.

Behind the PR piety, experience sadly tells us that not looking properly, or at all, can be an easy way out when faced with the choice of whether or not to lift the rock and see what’s scurrying underneath: damned if they uncover cheating, they’re also damned if they don’t by an innately suspicious public.

Hide blushes

It’s a no-win in many ways but it’s a self-inflicted no-win since far too often the anti-cheating procedures in sport can be legitimately dismissed as little more than figleafs of probity, applied to hide blushes rather than burrowing around in those dark places so many would rather not have revealed at all.

The list of sports, including racing, which have faced into such a dilemma and sacrificed long-term credibility for short-term expediency is as long as it is regrettable, resorting to tired declarations of “show us the evidence” rather than actively presuming the cheats to be one step ahead.

That presumption has to be especially present in racing since the attendant betting industry attracts many prepared to work very hard indeed in scurrilous pursuit of an easy buck. And you don’t have to go as far as Australia either.

It’s hard to be definitive about such things, especially when seriousness of intent so often comes down to intangible ‘feel’. But Australian racing’s fight against corruption does feel like the real thing, with meaningful efforts being made to tackle problems which will make for acute short-term pain but also, hopefully, long-term credibility.

And it's noticeable how people do recognise the real thing when they see it. One headline bluntly described the cobalt controversy as The Drug Scandal Australian Racing Had To Have. That's a lesson all of sport everywhere can surely learn from.

There’s also a lesson in how the fight isn’t about popularity. Racing stewards should be unpopular. It’s the nature of the job. But in a deeply unsettling, unwanted, undeserved and horribly warped way, Racing Victoria’s chief steward may have received as fine a professional compliment as he will ever get.

It means that ahead of the race that stops a nation, at least one racing nation looks to be heading in the right direction.