The Melbourne Cup prizemoney saga has taken another dramatic twist with revelations most of the $464,000 cut for the winning trainers was paid into a bank account linked with Michael Kirby, a former business associate of trainers Sheila Laxon and John Symons – a day after it was initially disbursed.
Idol Horse can reveal a money trail which alleges $439,000 was wired to a separate company quickly after Racing Victoria sent the stakes for Knight’s Choice’s stunning Melbourne Cup win.
The Melbourne Cup prizemoney matter is the subject of court action after Laxon and Symons accused Racing Victoria of negligence in paying the money to a bank account to which they no longer had access.
Racing Victoria says the last known bank details they had on file for the training partners was an institution associated with Esprit Racing, a company formerly set up by Kirby to employ Laxon and Symons as trainers after they were declared bankrupt in 2014.
Kirby’s LinkedIn profile also claims he’s the managing director of XO Accounting.
But an external administrator appointed to Esprit Racing, which went into liquidation earlier this year, has found two separate payments – one of $400,000 and another for $39,000 – were made from an Esprit Racing account to another business, Lasseter In Focus, on December 17 last year.
Racing Victoria made the $464,640 transfer for the trainers’ share of Knight’s Choice’s win on December 16.
It was only days later Symons raised the alarm with Racing Victoria about not receiving the Melbourne Cup earnings, and suspected it had been sent to Esprit Racing.
He and Laxon promptly started legal action against the regulator, and argued other state jurisdictions such as Racing Queensland have paid all their earnings from racehorses into another bank account since the pair set up their own business in 2023.
But the trainers hadn’t updated their bank details with Racing Victoria, whose defence in the Queensland District Court includes a reference to making eight separate payments for the pair’s portion of prizemoney from other runners during the Victorian spring carnival before the Melbourne Cup bungle.
Racing Victoria, it says, was never notified about any of those payments not being received by Laxon and Symons, even when some were made months before Knight’s Choice’s life-changing win.
According to insolvency specialists Jirsch Sutherland in documents seen by Idol Horse, Kirby is the current and sole director of Lasseter.
An XO Accounting file uncovered by administrator Malcolm Howell found Lasseter had a liability loan account of more than $1.4 million.
Howell met with Kirby on April 22. After the meeting Howell was informed that Kirby had an agreement with Esprit Racing to pay down the Lasseter loan from future incomings received by Esprit Racing.
Esprit Racing’s balance sheet also showed liabilities outweighed assets by $1.4 million at the end of the 2024 financial year, although the administrator said the figures were obtained from an XO file which “appear to be inaccurate or not completely reconciled”.
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.
Idol Horse attempted to contact Kirby through the XO Accounting office, and also put detailed questions via email about the transfer of the $439,000 to Lasseter and his involvement with that company. The attempts were unsuccessful.
Howell could not be contacted via phone.
It’s the latest chapter in a messy saga which has soured Knight’s Choice’s fairytale win, 23 years after Laxon became the first woman to prepare a Melbourne Cup victor with Ethereal.
Symons said last month: “It has taken all the joy out of it for Sheila and I. 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.” ∎
