Queensland Racing Integrity

Anyone know who? Batman? Bonjour? I'm sure it must be common knowledge among participants up there

QRIC & CHIEF STEWARD NEED TO LIFT THEIR ACT ON SERIOUS ISSUE

WE have reproduced this article written by ARCHIE BUTTERFLY on his subscriber-only website, www.peterprofit.com with his permission and because we feel it is in the interests of the racing public.

EXTREMELY disturbing reports are floating in about a Queensland racehorse trainer with a history of domestic violence order breaches who has been arrested by police and remanded in custody for alleged offences against another woman in the past week.

The licensee is believed to be trainer who won a rich major provincial series final in Brisbane.

Two months ago we were sent a picture of the person at the races wearing an electronic ankle bracelet, and were told that it was because he was on bail for DV breach offences and was required to wear it as a condition of his release. Not wanting to become involved in what at the time we believed were personal matters, we declined to publish the picture or a story explaining it.

This was terrible mistake on our behalf, and we apologise to women in racing and around the world for our error of judgement.

We have become aware subsequently that the reason that this trainer was wearing the electronic monitoring bracelet was because he had been charged with 18 counts of breaching bail, 12 of contravening a domestic violence order, two of attempting to pervert justice, and one each of assault occasioning bodily harm and public nuisance. At the time we did not know this.

Now we are told that the man was arrested at a Downs racetrack and charged with assaulting his new partner.

He is said to be remanded in custody to appear in court again for mention or plea on the 15th of February.

All of this is deeply disturbing on a personal level, and our heart goes out to his alleged victims.

The person's arrest is highly concerning from a racing perspective too, for it is said that reports about his alleged perverse behaviour and violence towards the woman involved in the industry were made to the QRIC and to the Queensland Chief Steward on several occasions, and both the organisation and the individual official were told of his previous arrests and the reasons for them.

It appears that nothing was done, and so the person was free to keep going to the track.

We understand as well, if not better, than anyone about the right to the presumption of innocence, and the right to a fair trial. But we also understand violence, and hate it when it is perpetrated against women. It is that hatred of cowards who hurt females that led us to once be arrested, charged and convicted for giving a coward of this type a taste of his own medicine. As we are still serving a non-custodial sentence for that offence, and feel until its end a deep remorse for our actions, we will say that what we did was wrong, and mean it too, however some might note that the victim of our crime never did it again to a woman, and they would be right too.

Unfortunately the licensee in this story - we won't call him a man, for men don't hit women - seems likely to have gone out and repeated his alleged violent actions against another woman after being freed on bail. Leopards and spots, and in the law we trust, until we don't.

Some senior racing integrity officials in Queensland appear to have a very perverse attitude to those who allegedly perpetrate physical and sexual violence against women, preferring to preserve the rights of accused perpetrators over the rights of their alleged victims. That is why we have a senior race club official hiding behind the name suppression laws and still performing his role while facing two separate counts of rape, and why this latest grub was allowed to continue holding a license that allowed him to go back and get arrested again for a like offence or offences.

It has to stop.

No-one is saying that an accused person should be judged guilty before they are found so. That would be unfair. But it is equally if not more unfair to place the alleged victims in a position where they are forced to leave the industry in order to protect their own physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing by avoiding situations where they are likely or perhaps even certain to cross paths with the male cowards who the police say have criminally assaulted them.

Peter V'Landys has shown the world how to deal with such allegations. His no fault stand-down rule whereby the person is barred from participation in the sport while awaiting trial, yet still permitted to maintain their contractual entitlements and their presumption of innocence is the exemplar in dealing with allegations of these kind.

It is about time that the QRIC and the Chief Steward adopted it.

Does the Magic Millions Race Day and Sales have special exemption from the COVID rules that apply to the rest of the community and normal taxpaying mums and dads?

Anyone who has watched television coverage from the Sales for millionaires and designed to make money for billionaire Gerry Harvey would think so.

The Rules relating to the wearing are pretty simply: Unless an exemption applies, a person MUST WEAR A FACE MASK AT ALL TIMES WHILST IN AN INDOOR SPACE.

Any person who fails to comply with this Government order without reasonable excuse could face up to six months imprisonment.

Officialdom should be especially stringent on the Gold Coast which has the worst record of COVID cases in Queensland not to mention the least number of citizens vaccinated.

During the week racing.com crossed to its reporter at the Sales and the compere asked: Are people abiding by the COVID rules? The reply: Yes, very stringently.

Behind him were dozens of Sales visitors and next to none of them were wearing masks.

IT BECOMES A MAJOR PROBLEM WHEN YOU CAN’T CONTROL OBJECTIVE CRITICS IN THE RACING MEDIA

RACING in Queensland needs an outspoken media critic like national broadcaster Ray Hadley – someone that those running the show can’t control like their ‘spin doctors’ in the Murdoch Media and on Radio TAB.

It’s easy to play ‘bully boy’ with websites or social media that dare to criticize and to take legal action to limit their ability to speak out like has happened with Archie Butterfly.

But Hadley doesn’t take kindly to threats and at present he has the Brisbane Racing Club running for cover over the stable eviction order placed on trainer Danny Bougoure, son of a legend of racing in Queensland.

Of course on this whole issue Racing Queensland is hiding under a rock and Racing Minister Grace Grace is nowhere to be seen – probably fearing that if she gets involved it might affect her nose in the trough annual visit to the Farm for Stradbroke day.

Hadley can be unrelenting as RQ CEO Brendan Parnell, the bloke paid well over a half a million dollars annually, found out when he allegedly tried to seal a deal involving the Albion Park Harness Racing Club to replace Josh Fleming as the SKY caller at Eagle Farm with David Fowler, the one-time Chairman of Australia’s worst performing major trots venue.

Whenever the outspoken and objective 4BC Morning Show Host sees a perceived injustice he tries to protect the victim as has been the case with Danny Bougoure. As Archie Butterfly wrote on his subscriber-only site, www.peterprofit.com, “He’s like a rabid dog savaging a bone.

‘Hadley was at it again (on Wedneday) attacking Bougoure’s landlords’s (the BRC) from all sides, in particular, the reindeer Matt Rudolph.

‘Rudolph should have manned up and fronted Hadley’s show during the week, or the CEO Tony Partridge should have anyway. But no doing so they have dug themselves a huge hole, and made an enemy of one of the most powerful broadcasters in the nation, which is not really the sort of person you want throwing bombs at you while you are hiding in your bunker, because Hadley doesn’t often miss.

‘The whole thing can still be fixed if the Eagle Farm management eat a bit of humble pie and reverse the eviction decision, and then bowl up on radio to say ‘sorry, we got this one wrong.’

‘What are the odds?

‘We’ll have to wait and see.

‘Only one thing is for sure.

‘This is not what Queensland Racing needs coming into the Carnival.’

EDITOR’S NOTE: Problem for the Brisbane Racing Club is that for too long (the days of the old QTC) they have been able to control what has been written in the mainstream racing media. They can’t cop criticism and never could but rarely got any, especially when Bart Sinclair, who works for them in retirement, was Racing Editor. One just hopes that the rumors (and that’s all they are), which we can’t repeat for legal reasons, are incorrect about why stables have been taken from Bougoure at Eagle Farm.