Weir ban raises more questions than it answers

Quite true, I don’t get horse-racing in the first place. Beyond the tradition of the Melbourne Cup, I don’t get the fascination with horseys running circles, nor the glory of an industry which while it produces nothing runs on a lifeblood that is the gambling losses of mug-punters. I’ll say it again: if they were holding a group 1 horse race – whatever that is – around my house, I would pull the curtains shut.

But in the wake of the Darren Weir affair there are a whole lot of other things I don’t get.

Darren Weir has been disqualified for four years, effective immediately.Credit:Jason South

Weir, as you likely know, is the front-line horse trainer who has been found to have used “jiggers” – cruel implements designed to give horses electrical shock to make them run faster. Writing in the Herald on Tuesday, Dyson Hore-Lacy SC, the Melbourne barrister noted "The allegations against Darren Weir represent the greatest scandal in local racing history".

Get it?

Not just another racing scandal among many racing scandals – I can’t keep track, on the track – but the greatest scandal in Australian racing history. This is no small claim with a history that includes the likes of Fine Cotton.

So what does the racing industry do in the face of one of their own, nakedly CHEATING in this manner?

It suspends Weir for four years, seemingly with no further questions asked. That’s it. Four years!

Pray tell, what does one have to do to be banned for life in this country, if cheating on an industrial scale only gets you four years?

But there are more things I don’t get.

Weir is a fellow that Racing Victoria counsel Jeff Gleeson QC noted in the Herald yesterday "as one of the most substantial and significant trainers in Australian thoroughbred history . . . he's a champion trainer of one of the biggest stables in the world." Get it?

He is not just another trainer. He is one of the most successful trainers in the country, and his presumed long-time use of the jigger places into question all of Weir’s previous wins. See, it is one thing for mug punters to lose their hard-earned dollars on races that were fairly run, between horses that were effectively on a level race-track. But we now know they weren’t! No, Weir’s horses, it seems were conditioned so that when the jockeys in early morning training put a jigger on to necks of their charges, the nags got an electric shock and ran faster, meaning that in actual races the jockey would only have to poke them hard in the neck and – like Pavlov’s greyhounds – they would surge forward.

So here are my further questions.

Where the hell are the other trainers speaking up about this outrage, condemning it from the roof-tops, saying that they are outraged, appalled, disgusted that one of their own can have cheated in this way? Why aren’t they simply carpet-biding mad on this?

Ideally, you’d like to think the opening remarks of other trainers would be, “I have never actually heard of a jigger in this industry and am simply stunned, but let me tell you …”

Beyond a few dark mutterings, anyone heard remarks along those lines? Me neither. I guess they must be out there, but the overall response seems to be embarrassed silence from Weir’s colleagues, and tacit acknowledgement from the industry that they know exactly what a "jigger" is – just as it was apparent that everyone in the greyhound racing industry knew exactly what live-bait was about. I don’t say other trainers used jiggers themselves, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot of head-scratching, you know?

But, moving on, why, seemingly, have the investigations stopped there? Clearly, Weir couldn’t have acted alone and at a bare minimum many of his jockeys over the years must have been involved. It need the jockeys during the morning training sessions to reach for the jigger in the straight, and the jockeys in the races to simulate the jigger at the right moment. And what was done with the said jiggers when training was over? Did they – very unlikely under the circumstances – stuff it down their riding breeches? Or was it handed to a strapper to be put away until tomorrow?

In short, how many other people were involved in this scandal, and why aren’t they being pursued?

Surely, whatever motion jockeys do to poke the horse in the neck would show up on some footage?

Or is this all too hard for the racing industry? As it is built on gambling, is it just too hard to go back through previous races and establish that some result were demonstrably corrupt, because it’d be impossible to get the money back from those who won on horses that only crossed the line first because of Weir and the jockey’s cheating? And too expensive to pay out to those who should have won?

Widening the inquiry to go after jockeys and strappers? Too hard, mate. What if you established that a dozen of them were involved, that this was like an open secret? What if you found out other trainers also used the practice?

It would just blow racing apart. No, much easier if Weir doesn’t contest the charges, in exchange for a light sentence and that way you might even make the public believe that this was just a one-off, a sole trainer that went rogue.

I say bullshit.

I say that while it’s one thing for the racing industry to leave it there – as an exercise in self-preservation – it is the duty of the government, the legal authorities, to get to the bottom of it, for the sanctity of an entire industry.

Twitter: @Peter_Fitz

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