RACING Queensland is expected to announce today the appointment of ALAN REARDON to a prominent role in a restructure of the Integrity Department.
Rival media organisations, including this website and Racing Radio TAB, expecting the announcement to be provided exclusively to The Courier-Mail which is loyal to the RQL Board, have jumped the gun.
By the time the Media Release is distributed the only news will be the role Reardon will play but it can be expected to fit in with what the RQ Chief Steward Wade Birch wants. There is no room in the integrity of RQ it would apear for anyone who he does not feel comfortable with.
It will be interesting to see if RQ Chairman Kevin Dixon reveals what is happening with Integrity - in view of the number who have been sacked - and whether the department will become an independent organisation outside the domain of RQ and possibly under the arm of Government as the LNP promised pre-election.
Expect a big welcome back story in The Courier-Mail on Saturday with no mention of the high profile Australian steward who was ignored for the job because some at the top and their advisors in the media apparently rated him too tough.
It appears Reardon, one of Australia's most popular stewards and a great favorite of the licensees in Queensland, will return north to run a restructured Integrity Department for the new-look Racing Queensland.
Reardon, 58, will have done an east coast circuit since being controversially sacked by the Board of Bob Bentley when he was Chief Steward in Queensland in July 2004.
He was quickly snapped up by the panel of Ray Murrihy at Racing New South Wales and spent over four years there before moving on to Racing Victoria in January 2009 as deputy to another former Queenslander Terry Bailey.
There were several big names being mentioned in dispatches for the RQL job but mystery still surrounds whether the promised restructure of the Integrity Department will occur.
Few have survived the Integrity purge. Jamie Orchard, head of the department in the Bentley era, jumped ship before being pushed. He was one of four high profile RQL executives provided with a ‘golden handshake’ when they resigned two days after the LNP won the Queensland election.
Since then several other members of the Integrity Department have been dismissed or made redundant. The concerning aspect for the industry are reports that Integrity will not become a separate arm of RQL administration as the LNP promised in the lead-up to the election. This is in contrast to what new Racing Minister Steve Dickson told Parliament recently.
Just how the new boss of Integrity was chosen also remains a mystery. Some big name stewards across the land were mentioned in dispatches as candidates for the job but the unofficial media man for RQ was telling anyone who wanted to listen that they didn’t have the money to pay a ‘gun’ steward to come to Queensland.
There are also reports that the head of Integrity chosen by RQ had to be acceptable to current Chairman of Stewards Wade Birch and that narrowed down the field. This suggestion has flabbergasted many in the industry who believe that Birch needs an experienced, respected steward to guide him in the tough role he inherited at a very young age.
Reardon has the credentials. His supporters say he reads a race better than any other steward in the country. His detractors claim he is too soft and rarely pursues inquiries involving big name jockeys and trainers, which is an argument being leveled at Birch as well. Many in the industry believe this is a legacy of the Steve Railton days when the licensees had a virtual love affair with the stewards.
The return of Reardon to Queensland racing would be seen as some compensation for the shabby way he was treated back in 2004 after serving the state so well for so many years.
At the time Reardon said he was sacked due to his relationship with Queensland Racing integrity manager Bob Mason being "irreparably and irretrievably broken down". That was a nice way of saying the largely despised Mason didn’t want him there.
"I expected it for six months," he said at the time. "The only reason I've been given for my sacking was a breakdown in my relationship with Dr Mason."
Mason was later to leave Queensland Racing, along with several of his lackies, but the damage to the industry had been done and this is a time that will continue to haunt Chairman Bob Bentley who allowed it to happen.
When Reardon was sacked QR issued a statement relating to a swab mishap from a Gold Coast meeting involving a horse trained by Maryann Thexton but made no mention of Reardon.
QR chairman Bob Bentley said in the statement a subsequent appeal by Thexton to the Racing Appeals Tribunal resulted in inquiries being made into the chain of custody and security of the bag containing urine and blood samples, which was under the control of metropolitan stewards.
"The result of these inquiries revealed a series of unusual features which warrant further and very thorough investigation," Bentley said.
The first of these came up at the Thexton inquiry, where the chain of possession of a swabbing security bag was questioned after numbers on it had been altered using correction fluid.
"So far, none of the employees involved have satisfactorily explained how these unusual features occurred, either to QR, or to Ms Thexton," Bentley stated.
At the time he said QR had engaged legal representatives to investigate the matter, while the Criminal Misconduct Commission has been notified and intends investigating the matter.
"The only problem was the chain of custody, and the paperwork was the problem, and I told them [QR] that," Reardon said.
Whilst no Media Release has been made on the Reardon appointment, which we understand has been basically agreed upon, letsgohorseracing thought it would take a punt and break the news before RQ delivered an exclusive to The Courier-Mail.