“You can always judge a man by the quality of his enemies,” Oscar Wilde said.
Racing NSW chief executive Peter V’landys has various enemies of various character. Some of them are out in the open while others hide in the shadows, loading the bullets.
Most seem hellbent on bringing the man his allies call “Australia’s most powerful sporting administrator” to heel.
Hearings at an explosive NSW parliamentary inquiry last month into the proposed development of Rosehill Racecourse might have ended — with findings to be tabled in November — but the fallout continues.
The inquiry’s terms of reference were about the controversial plan to level the racecourse to make way for affordable housing for 25,000 residents with a station on the Metro West line.
But it quickly developed into a popcorn-passing war of words between V’landys and independent MP Mark Latham, who has been gunning for the racing boss under the cloak of parliamentary privilege for much of the year.
Racing NSW boss Peter V’landys clashed with upper house MP Mark Latham a parliamentary hearing last month.Credit: Dean Sewell
In calling for V’landys to resign, Latham has accused him of “nepotism, regulatory abuse, and a lack of financial accountability” while also claiming Racing NSW is a “toxic workplace plagued by intimidation, favouritism, electronic surveillance, and constant decision-making and interference by the CEO.”
Questions have been asked many times before about V’landys’ leadership style, whether it’s in racing or rugby league, of which he is ARL Commission chairman, but Latham’s missives are the heaviest blows he’s had to absorb in many a moon.
For his part, V’landys reckons the whole thing is an unedifying hatchet job because he’s sided with Premier Chris Minns over the Rosehill proposal, which could earn the Australian Turf Club an estimated $5 billion from its sale along with a new racetrack, possibly within the Sydney Olympic Park precinct.
“There is no doubt Mr Latham is running an agenda for some very wealthy breeders who don’t wish to be held to account for animal welfare,” he told this masthead last month. “They have at all times resisted having their horses traced from birth to retirement. They are attempting a smear campaign on steroids.”
Rosehill Racecourse will on Saturday host the Golden Slipper race, and Chris Waller-trained Switzerland is the second favourite to win.Credit: Nick Moir
While it’s a very Sydney story, I can tell you Four Corners has V’landys in its sights. Their interest has been the talk of the racing industry in recent weeks after reporter Angus Grigg reached out to several of his, er, enemies.
As the NRL and AFL can attest, Four Corners isn’t the program you want sniffing your jockstrap. It rarely ends well.
You’ll recall ABC stablemate 7.30 aired a damning report in October 2019 about racing’s track record with animal cruelty and wastage.
V’landys insisted in an interview with reporter Caro Meldrum-Hanna that no horse had been sent to a knackery or abattoir “because it’s against the rules of racing.”
The report then detailed how, according to experts, more than 4000 racehorses were being slaughtered in Australia each year. Graphic video footage underlined a grizzly point.
As Crikey’s Michael Bradley wrote at the time, it was “a classic of the gotcha journalism genre”. V’landys unsuccessfully sued the ABC for defamation in 2021 and lost an appeal in the federal court last year.
V’landys usually welcomes a fight but his decision to support the demolition of the much-loved Rosehill course — the home of the Golden Slipper — has put him offside with many powerful figures, including leading trainer Gai Waterhouse, who has clashed with him many times in the past.
Some of the combatants are once-trusted supporters, including Chris Waller, who has built a racing empire at Rosehill after getting his first boxes there 25 years ago.
‘As the NRL and AFL can attest, Four Corners isn’t the program you want sniffing your jockstrap.’
When mighty mare Winx was drawing thousands of new fans to the racetrack, V’landys did everything in his power to support Waller, who was under pressure to ensure she kept winning.
Breeding giant John Messara, who races horses in partnership with veteran broadcaster Alan Jones, is also against the Rosehill proposal.
During his time as Racing NSW chairman from 2011 to 2016, he and V’landys were a formidable combination with strong links to government at every level. They did so much for racing, including the redevelopment of Randwick and the birth of The Championships.
So it’s interesting to see them pitted against each other now. Enemies, if you will.
Whether Four Corners cranks up a story in the New Year remains unclear. Grigg had no comment and V’landys wasn’t giving away much when I approached him. He’s aware the program was sniffing around the Rosehill story but nothing more than that.
If I know the pugnacious administrator at all, he’ll want to defend himself against attacks from enemies he can see and those he cannot.
Another Oscar Wilde quote: “True friends stab you in the front.”
Bulldogs winger Josh Addo-Carr.Credit: Getty Images
Another rapid week in rugby league
A week can be a long time in rugby league, but it moves much quicker at the Bulldogs.
General manager of football Phil Gould told us last Tuesday that it could take months before we learned the result of winger Josh Addo-Carr’s second roadside test for cocaine.
“I mightn’t be alive!” he joked.
Three days later, the second test had come back positive with Addo-Carr’s lawyer declaring his client would accept the $682 fine and a three-month driving suspension — even though he maintained he never knowingly ingested the party drug.
Leading figures in the drug-testing industry tell me the tongue-wipes NSW Police use for roadside tests for cocaine are “99 per cent” accurate because it has less “cross-reactivity” than other illicit substances, like amphetamines. Addo-Carr returned positives to two wipes.
All that will be considered when the NRL makes a decision following his meeting with the NRL Integrity Unit on Thursday. Sharks five-eighth Braydon Trindall received a four-match ban after he was caught drug-driving in April.
Whatever the outcome, you suspect Addo-Carr has played his last match for the Bulldogs.
After telling us last week that he didn’t think the winger had deliberately lied or misled him, Gould told the Six Tackles with Gus podcast there were “too many contradictions” in his story and it had changed “day to day”.
Graham McNeice and John Tapp in 1998.
Vale, Graham McNeice
Very sad news last week about the death of former Sky Racing broadcaster and sports doco pioneer Graham McNeice following a brief illness. He was 76.
The great “Shadow” was one of the most decent men you’d find. I can’t recall a bad word ever being said about him, a rarity in this business. He was effectively a big brother to fellow broadcaster Terry Kennedy, whose late father, Frank, a greyhound calling legend, took McNeice under his wing. Hence, the nickname “Shadow”.
“They burned through many kilometres driving to greyhound and racetracks around the state,” Kennedy said. “A few dollars on the punt, too. Graham helped as many people who were starting off in the industry as he could. He wanted them to make the most of their talents. Not because he had to — because he wanted to.”
This from Kenny Callander, who worked with McNeice at Sky and 2UE: “Shadow, being a bachelor, was always Santa Claus at the Racing Writers’ Christmas Party — a big event in the day. All the kids would sit on Santa’s knee, and he’d ask them what they wanted for Christmas. As a gee-up he would promise my four sons plenty, and I’d need to back plenty of winners not to let Santa down.”
A private funeral will be held next week.
THE QUOTE
“Like Moses, I’m going to die leaning on my staff.” — LA Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh. Mitchell? Issac? Edwin?
THUMBS UP
Thank you, Glasgow, for saving the Commonwealth Games after Victoria nearly killed the poor darling. The result is a good one: a scaled-down event with just 10 sports held at four venues and no athletes’ village. Some reckon the Comm Games have run their race but, after attending the last instalment in Birmingham, I have an appreciation of their importance to athletes and particularly para-athletes.
THUMBS DOWN
Dan Ginnane and Gorden Tallis had an interesting chat going on Triple M on Sunday night in which they questioned rugby league fans who use Sydney’s traffic snarls as an excuse to not attend matches. As they said this, those of us stuck in the P1 carpark following the Bulldogs-Manly elimination final at Accor were wondering if we might die there. It took almost two hours to get out of the Sydney Olympic Park precinct.
It’s a big weekend for … New Zealand-born Wallabies coach Joe Schmidt. “He was once a trusted consigliere to former All Blacks coach Ian Foster,” Richard Knowler wrote for Stuff.com. “But Joe Schmidt’s new paymasters at Rugby Australia will want him to squirt every drop of inside oil about the Kiwis into the Wallabies’ minds ahead of the Bledisloe Cup test.”
It’s an even bigger weekend for … Cronulla halfback Nicho Hynes, who finds himself at the bottom of a mainstream, social, and alternative media pile-on for not aiming up in big matches. Having seen first-hand the selfless, unrecognised work he does for our youth, I just can’t criticise the guy. Let’s hope he silences a few people when the Sharks meet the Cowboys.
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