Racing Victoria made eight separate payments to a bank account they thought was being accessed by Sheila Laxon and John Symons before the bungled transfer of almost A$500,000 in prizemoney for the Melbourne Cup.
The ongoing stoush over the winnings for Australia’s great race is laid bare in court documents seen by Idol Horse, in which Racing Victoria will allege they had no culpability for Laxon and Symons not directly receiving their share of the winnings from last year’s race.
The Cup-winning trainers, who stunned the horse racing world when Knight’s Choice secured the famous Flemington two-miler at huge odds, have started legal action against Racing Victoria to recover the money.
The trainers stood to collect A$464,640 as their cut for preparing Knight’s Choice.
But in papers lodged with the Queensland District Court, Racing Victoria has given its strongest indication it will vehemently fight the case, outlining eight different payments they claim were made to a bank account they had on record for Laxon and Symons for prizemoney won by their horses during the Victorian spring carnival – and before the Melbourne Cup.
They ranged from A$1425 for Knight’s Choice’s stablemate Mission Of Love running at Flemington in mid-September to a minor A$316.80 won by Winsome Star for contesting a race on the final day of the Melbourne Cup carnival.
Knight’s Choice also earned his trainers A$1320 for finishing fifth in the Bendigo Cup, his final run before the Melbourne Cup.
The regulator even states it sent remittance notices to an email address it had on file for Symons when he formerly trained under a company called Esprit Racing.
It’s unclear whether Symons even saw those remittance emails or still had access to the inbox.
It was more than a month after the last of the eight payments were made to the bank account when Racing Victoria wired the A$464,640 to an institution it believed kept funds meant for Laxon and Symons.
Court documents reveal four days later, on December 20 in the frantic countdown to Christmas, Symons contacted a Racing Victoria executive to alert them they hadn’t received the money.
According to the trainers’ statement of claim, Symons realised after phone and email communication with Racing Victoria the money had been transferred to an “unrelated third party”.
The unrelated third party is believed to be Esprit Racing, the company which employed Laxon and Symons after the trainers declared bankruptcy in 2014 following a court case brought on by one of their former owners, Frank Butler.
Laxon and Symons were to have no dealings with the financial side of Esprit Racing to train in Queensland.
Esprit Racing was, at that time, 100% owned by Michael Kirby, managing director of XO Accounting, which was responsible for managing the company’s financial affairs.
When Esprit Racing went into liquidation in early February this year, it was listed as having a sole director and shareholder, 82-year-old Judith Sutcliffe, who previously went by the name Kirby. According to Symons, Sutcliffe is Kirby’s mother. Michael Kirby had ceased to be a shareholder of the company for some years and was never an active director.
Laxon and Symons had restrictions on their training licence lifted in 2023 and started their own business, which included updating their bank account in a Racing Queensland database for earnings.
But Racing Victoria claim, at all times, the bank account they had on file for Laxon and Symons had been the same since 2014, and the “plaintiffs never notified, instructed or otherwise directed the defendant to pay trainer prizemoney to any bank account other than the nominated bank account”.
“The defendant did not have any knowledge of, or access to, any bank account details notified by the plaintiffs to any other principal racing authority,” Racing Victoria’s defence claims. “No other PRAs or Racing Australia notified Racing Victoria to use another bank account.”
The matter remains before the court ∎
