October
MarchRuns on the board
Powerful stakeholders in Racing Victoria, recently slamming the relatively minor contract extension of the reigning CEO of RVL, are leaving their faces open to ostrich-sized egg.
Prior to Mr Rob Hines, RVL achieved an unwanted hat-trick with its three erstwhile CEO appointees. I’m not including Mr Bernard Saundry — sent in as a nightwatchman, he at least instituted some sorely needed and significant operational economies.
I remind Mr Hines’s detractors of the disgraced military man Mr S. Allanson, memorable for an extremely dubious commercial deal and for wearing a top hat at the Ascot races — perhaps the top hat won by RVL for its CEO hat-trick.
Before him was the reputed polymath Mr R. Nason, memorable for his vow to cancel the spring carnival rather than entertain Betfair, surely the best named product in racing. You bet, and it’s fair!
Of course Betfair was much more dangerous to Tabcorp, Mr Nason’s employer after he jumped ship, than it ever was or would be to Victorian racing, bringing as it does an excellent diagnostic and forensic tool for ensuring propriety and integrity in racing.
And the question must be asked: just how much would Victoria and its racing have benefited from welcoming and embracing Betfair, rather than losing all that to Tasmania?
And before Nason, Mr … Mr … Mr Neville something? Was it something to do with peace in our time? In any case there are special prizes for remembering his name and whatever it was he did for racing.
Judges’ findings in Australian court cases frequently amaze and astound not only laypersons but lawyers and other jurists. Only a spendthrift with a sense of humour would bet on an outcome, and Mr Hines is castigated for a business decision he made, based on commercial information then at hand.
What if the previous NSW judgment is restored? Will Mr Hines then be a genius? I can hear an ostrich straining somewhere.
Rutherglen (Vic)