THE ‘Gingerbread Man’ promised his mates – ‘I’ll Be Back’ and that has happened.
Thanks to a ruling by QCAT – as predicted by LGHR weeks ago – racing’s labelled ‘bad boy’ Ben Currie is back in business.
QCAT threw Currie a lifeline upholding his appeal against a QRIC decision not to renew his stablehand’s license. They preferred the legal argument that Currie had paid for past indiscretions rather than the QRIC one that he wasn’t a suitable person to even be a stablehand.
Caught in the crossfire is Currie’s KC, Jim Murdoch, a hobby trainer who some of his colleagues argue should not be fighting the cases of identities the majority don’t want in the game.
Murdoch is a ‘master legal eagle’ when it comes to racing matters but on this occasion simply argued the law and unlike the Queensland Racing Appeals Panel, who might have been harder to convince because of their intricate knowledge of horse racing, QCAT is a body better known for handling neighborhood disputes.
Currie, a one-time leading trainer, has been in a sort of ‘no-man’s land’ since his partnership with Sunshine Coast trainer Billy Healey proved to be a brief one. The plan was for some of the horses formerly trained by Ben’s dad, Mark, to be transferred to Healey as part of a deal for Ben to be involved after Mark retired.
Some of these horses have since bobbed up with trainer Kelly Clark-Peoples and enjoyed reasonable success. This has attracted unproven claims that ‘Ben’ has been the ‘de facto’ trainer at the stable that those in the know say he will now join.
Whilst the QCAT decision has angered some trainers – especially on the Sunshine Coast – even Ben would have to accept that a cat with nine lives would not survive another indiscretion.
Critics of the integrity changes being made to QRIC say that – with Kim Kelly gone and the ‘invisible man’ replacing him yet to be named – times like those recently when mobile phones of supposed associates of Ben Currie were seized – will no longer happen.
