“No Karma”: The Fractured Fairytale Of Knight’s Choice’s Melbourne Cup Win
The prizemoney drama is only one piece of the messy saga surrounding the co-trainers of the 2024 Melbourne Cup winner Knight’s Choice, writes Adam Pengilly.
AS KNIGHT’S CHOICE weaved through the pack and won a thrilling Melbourne Cup at massive odds, Paddy Scott just shook his head in disbelief.
“I was gutted,” the agistment farmer said. “I just thought there’s no justice in the world or no karma in the world. It just seemed bitterly unfair to me.”
What Scott was watching should have been an Australian racing fairytale which, in all likelihood, could make a movie one day: one of the few Australian-bred horses to stave off the expensive European imports, winning at massive odds of $91, being ridden by an Irish jockey who shot to fame as a singer on a reality television show, for a trainer who had 23 years earlier become the first woman to prepare a Cup winner.
But while tens of thousands tried to understand what they had watched on course at Flemington, there were a handful of others who couldn’t believe Sheila Laxon was still training another Cup winner, this time in partnership with John Symons.
Scott was one of them.
He used to run an agistment farm in regional Victoria where Laxon and Symons would spell their horses. It was like any other commercial arrangement: Scott and his family taking care of the horses at Springbank Farm and subsequently sending bills for their work, which included tending to more than 100 horses over a two-year period.
“We started sending invoices directly to their owners, but they [Laxon and Symons] had shares in horses [too],” Scott says. “It crept up over 12 months they weren’t paying for their shares.
“I’d known John since I was a teenager and didn’t have real alarm bells. We probably let it go longer than we should have. Then they wanted to send all the bills direct to them so they could pay it quicker. None of it was coming to us.
“They had a really bizarre way of dealing with it.”
In the end, Scott had no other option but to take legal action against Laxon, a Melbourne Cup ambassador after her historic feats, and Symons.
A court later heard an employee of Laxon’s resigned after Laxon asked she write a letter claiming they hadn’t received any invoices from Springbank. The employee said they had.
Springbank entered into a settlement with Laxon and Symons, but Scott estimates it was still $80,000 to $90,000 shy of what they believed the farm was fully owed. Symons vehemently denied to Idol Horse accusations any supplier was left out of pocket from their time training in Victoria.
“It set us back a lot, that’s for sure,” Scott says.
“We have cattle around us now and that was one of the instigators to get out of the horse game. We own a few privately that we race ourselves, but we don’t work for anybody else now.
“We just lost faith in justice.”
Idol Horse has spoken to more than 10 sources for this story from the time Laxon and Symons trained in Victoria, many of whom asked to remain anonymous in the wake of a bureaucratic bungle which has seen the trainer not receive their cut of Knight’s Choice’s Melbourne Cup prizemoney.
Laxon and Symons have commenced legal proceedings against Racing Victoria for their $464,000 percentage after the regulator deposited it into an account they do not have access to.
The account was the last updated details Racing Victoria claim they had on file for Laxon and Symons.
The account into which the money was paid belongs to a company called Esprit Racing, which had employed Laxon and Symons after the trainers filed for bankruptcy a decade ago.
But their history left many people jilted, so much so that when Knight’s Choice crossed the line in the Melbourne Cup, WhatsApp groups lit up in dismay.
“There were always debt collectors knocking on their door, but Sheila was too smart for them,” one person said of their time in Seymour.
A further supplier, who asked not be named, admitted a family-run company had multiple run-ins with the training partnership regarding overdue bills during their time in Victoria, but was “happy” to see them win the Melbourne Cup.
“Not so much John Symons, but you would send Sheila an account and she would query it and then let it go,” they said. “We had good clients that paid and they carried the ones that weren’t good.
“I will say they treated our staff well though and it was great they won the Cup.”
Other people spoken to in Victoria for this article were adamant their businesses were eventually paid outstanding invoices after months of wrangling.
Symons insists every person who supplied the stable – from vets to farriers and feed merchants – “all got paid” from their time training in Victoria.
But emotions still run deep when it comes to Laxon, one of the most successful trainers in the history of Australia’s great race, who won the Caulfield–Melbourne Cup double with Ethereal in 2001.
How Laxon and Symons ended up moving to Queensland and training as employees of Esprit Racing is a long and complex story.
Laxon and Symons’ former close friend Frank Butler won a Victorian Supreme Court decision in 2014 after he sued the training partners for failing to pay auction houses, or procure other shareholders for horses in which he had bought into.
When contacted, Butler told Idol Horse: “While I have little interest in digging up too many events of the past, the only way to resolve the issue was to go to court.
“I wouldn’t wish anyone to go through what my family and I did.”
But sources have said he remains more than $1 million out of pocket for legal costs because Laxon and Symons declared bankruptcy shortly after the court findings.
“But everything else [other than Butler’s legal costs] was settled prior to us going bankrupt,” Symons said. “I can tell you we don’t owe any money. Springbank Farm was settled and that was paid. If we did owe any money, we wouldn’t have got a [training] licence.”
Multiple people contacted for this story said they were under the impression from integrity officials that Laxon and Symons wouldn’t be granted a licence again in the state after the ordeal.
But they continued to train for another 12 months in Victoria (albeit under certain conditions), then relocated to Queensland shortly after, where Symons says they had always planned to run a satellite stable.
The Queensland Racing Integrity Commission blocked their first attempt to resume training, but a 2016 appeal found in their favour. It was on one proviso: they would be employed by Esprit Racing for training purposes only, and have no involvement in the financial side of the business.
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.
For years, there appeared to be no issue between Laxon, Symons and Kirby.
Up until the 2021 Magic Millions sales on the Gold Coast, Symons and Kirby were listed buying horses in partnership, including a combined $162,500 for two colts and a filly under the sweltering summer sun. One was Knight’s Choice, an $85,000 Extreme Choice yearling who would stun the horse racing world a few years later.
Symons says, in reality, he was just the buying agent at the sales, and he would procure the horses for Esprit Racing, hence why Kirby’s name also appeared as a buyer.
But it appears some time after the 2021 sales, the relationship between the trainers and Kirby became fractured.
Kirby was no longer listed as buying horses at sales, and company records show by early 2023 Laxon and Symons had set up their own business, Symons Laxon Racing Pty Ltd.
So, how did Laxon and Symons come to be able to control the finances of a business again?
The Queensland Racing Integrity Commission lifted a restriction on Laxon’s licence in March 2023, only a month after Symons Laxon Racing Pty Ltd was established, and almost a decade after they filed for bankruptcy.
“QRIC can confirm that Ms Sheila Laxon and John Symons were licensed as trainers in Queensland between 2016-2023 as employees of a racing stable with strict conditions imposed by the QRIC in respect of that arrangement,” QRIC said in a statement.
“Licensing conditions that were imposed in 2016 were removed in March 2023.”
It appears Laxon and Symons had changed their bank account details for prizemoney to be paid into a new account while training from the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, but those details were not accessed by Racing Victoria when they paid the Melbourne Cup money.
Once Laxon and Symons realised jockey Robbie Dolan and Knight’s Choice’s new owners had been paid their share of the Cup prizemoney, they knew something was wrong.
The money had been wired to Esprit Racing.
When Esprit Racing went into liquidation in early February, 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.
Documents appear to show the company previously alleged Laxon and Symons owed Esprit Racing $569,875.
Symons denied to Idol Horse they owe any money to Esprit Racing, and claims the company is actually $26,000 in debt to them.
An administrator, Jirsch Sutherland Insolvency Solutions’ Malcolm Howell, has been appointed to clean up the affairs of Esprit Racing. Howell was contacted for comment.
But in the latest Esprit Racing company filings, Symons Laxon Racing is listed as an unsecured creditor for $10,000. According to the documents, Esprit Racing also owes the Australian Taxation Office $100,000.
Racing Victoria will defend the legal action lodged against them by Laxon and Symons, and insist it simply paid the Melbourne Cup prizemoney into an account which was the latest details they had on hand for the training partnership.
“We have taken the steps available to us to assist Ms Laxon and Mr Symons in recovering the money from what RV has subsequently been advised is their former account,” it said in a statement.
Knight’s Choice and stablemate Mission Of Love had both contested races a month before the Melbourne Cup in Victoria, and while their prizemoney was only minimal, Racing Victoria claim they were not alerted to those stakes being sent to the wrong account for the trainers before the Cup money bungle.
But there was an anomaly.
Symons was also an owner, as well as co-trainer, of Mission Of Love, and said Racing Victoria paid his cut of the prizemoney as an owner into the current account of their business.
Yet the same wasn’t done for the life-changing amount they were to receive as trainers of the Melbourne Cup winner.
“It has taken all the joy out of it for Sheila and I,” Symons said. “We’ve got pain and suffering now and there’s a misconception about what has happened. This is destroying the credibility we’ve spent 10 years building.”
Kirby did not respond to detailed questions put to him about any ongoing connection to Esprit Racing and the financial dealings of the company with Laxon and Symons.
Judith Sutcliffe could not be reached for comment ∎
