Racing Victoria bosses "have countered claims that they have been to slow to unravel the multi million dollar mess left by the collapse of the BC3 Thoroughbreds set up," and the organization says "it has accumulated more than one million pieces of information to help them unravel the complicated fall out of the punting and investment scandal," according to Michael Lynch of THE AGE.
RV Exec GM Integrity Services Dayle Brown said that the probe "is by far the biggest investigation ever taken by the sport's governing body." Brown: "The analysis of this data has taken considerable time, but we are nearing completion of this phase of the investigation and are building an intimate picture of BC3 Thoroughbreds and its racehorse ownership business" (THE AGE, 2/2). In Sydney, Patrick Bartley reported Racing authorities fear that a dangerous new drug that "is being used by trainers in Australia and they admit they do not have the means to test for it, or the jurisdiction to punish offenders if a positive test is found." Victorian racing investigators "now use human laboratories or overseas testing facilities in a bid to apprehend horse trainers who are using the drug cobalt chloride." And stewards "are unable to charge trainers with the use of the substance because the appropriate threshold levels are still to be determined" (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 2/3).
