Moods

by Helen Thomas

  She is adamant the Victorian stewards have been ‘hounding’ their operation for years. ‘We would be one of the most tested stables in the country and have they ever found anything? I said to the stewards a while back, “If it’s about the integrity of racing, then why don’t you make it known all the stables you test and find nothing? How many horses you test [in] a month and find nothing?” They said, “Oh, well, nobody wants to know about that, that’s not of any interest to anybody.”’

  Sarah claims that, about four years ago, stewards tested every horse at Moody Racing’s yard at Caulfield. ‘Apparently, someone tipped them off that Pete … had to be using something, because he was so successful. Nothing came of it. Nothing came of it, nothing was said about it.’ She says this inspection was on top of regular random tests every three or four months. ‘They would just come in and randomly test whatever horses they wanted, and found nothing. We would be stupid to think that we could give a horse something and get away with it, when you know that they’re coming and testing you all the time.’

  She predicts her husband will continue to work with his small band of broodmares. Conscious of the expectation that surrounds his professional future, she is adamant about what else he will and will not do in the times ahead.

  ‘He will never leave the industry, but he will never train again,’ she insists. ‘They say, “He’ll be back – of course he’ll be back.” My answer to that is, by coming back and training again, that is saying what they have done to us is okay, and it is not okay. I speak about Pete training as “we” because it is us. It is our business – it is our life. So we will never train again. [But] Pete will definitely be involved in the industry, for sure.’

  The trainer himself is not quite as specific about what the future does or doesn’t hold, at least publicly. But it is not too hard to read between the lines. He expects testing procedures for all illegal substances to be significantly reviewed in light of developments in Victoria’s on-going cobalt cases, and is typically blunt about the current state of his relationship with racing authorities.

  ‘These are people I’ve got to look to every race day, and respect. They’ve got a key to my house, and my office, and my stables. I can’t make a mistake, [or else] I’m a cheat … and these blokes have control over my destiny. Would I want to return to that? To bow and scrape to these men, who I’m ultimately supposed to show respect to, and I want to show respect to – but I can’t show them respect that they probably deserve, [because] of what I know.’

  With uncharacteristic restraint, Moody alludes to possible legal ramifications, should trainers Mark Kavanagh and Danny O’Brien successfully appeal their disqualifications. ‘I think it’ll play out a fair bit more,’ he says. ‘The science has got to be studied a bit more, [and] their testing procedures probably need to be tidied up. I know there’ll be quite a deal of stuff presented in the other cases – which ultimately might not change the outcome of their destiny.

  ‘But it’ll show that Racing Victoria, for some unknown reason … had it in their head that [cobalt] was unbelievable, [and] being used in the industry. But I don’t know – I know I wasn’t using it. I think Racing Victoria know, through the levels that they took, [that] maybe trainers were using it or trying to use it. Maybe they thought there was a big issue there. Maybe they were trying to catch other stables too.’

  *

  Not long after the Easter Yearling Sale, the trainer was again on the move, making a 14-hour drive up the highway to Queensland in late autumn. The trip perhaps revealed more of his soul than he probably intended. ‘I was in Melbourne on Thursday and around 1 p.m. I said to the old woman, “I’m going for a drive for a week, or 10 days, or a fortnight.”’ He wanted to catch up with old friends up north, and Toowoomba’s annual Weetwood race meeting seemed a good place to start.

  After driving through the night, the trainer eventually arrived at Basil Nolan’s Raheen Stud, just outside Warwick on the Darling Downs. ‘I got to the stud at 3 a.m. and thought, “I can’t wake any bastard up.”’ So he rolled out his swag near his car and fell asleep, only to be woken a little later – by an unexpected visitor. ‘At 5.30 a.m. I could sense something was licking my ear. They have a pet black-and-white lamb and the bloody thing took a liking to me. I hunted it away, then at 6.30 I heard this, “Oi, oi!” Basil Nolan was standing 10 foot away from my swag, but was not game to come and poke me; he didn’t know who it was, because I [had] pulled the flaps up. The Nolans shit themselves when they found me asleep on the front lawn!’

  Later that day, he went to the races, ‘where there was a gathering of folk from western Queensland for one of my mates’ daughter’s 20th birthday. There was a heap of Charleville people there, so we sat up the back on the grass at Toowoomba and drank 48 cans. By the time we got in front of the grandstand, the lights were on but every bastard had gone home. It was the first time I have paid to go to a race meeting in my bloody life – $25, if you don’t mind – and I did not see a horse.’

  It was vintage Peter Moody. A ramshackle moment in a rollicking, roller-coaster ride of a life, and quite out of sync with the rigid schedule he has held to for some three decades as he shaped horses to be fast and brave. Finally, the trainer was relaxing, letting his guard down in a space in which he felt safe. Back where he came from, under the big sky of Wyandra, and Charleville. And horses not quite in sight, but always within cooee.

  EPILOGUE

  A WEEK IS a long time in racing. So much can go right, and wrong, with horses in a short space of time that the phrase has come to represent a measure for the ups and downs of life for those working with them. So six months must have stretched out like an eternity for Peter Moody when he was officially sidelined for 26 weeks: 182 days. But as he started his suspension, he could not have imagined what would unfold in that period.

  The trainer had worried quietly how the cobalt drama would affect his reputation among his colleagues, as well as his future employment prospects. But within a month of him closing his stable and walking away from the track, new roles started to take shape. As well as the contentious ‘ambassadorship’ for the online bookmaker, Moody was appointed racing manager of Victoria’s Rosemount Stud, and bloodstock advisor for syndicator Wylie Dalzeil Roy Higgins Racing. He also continued to prove a popular guest at racing carnivals and ‘on stud’ functions. This surprised no one, with the possible exception of Moody himself.

  Unsurprising, too, was Racing Australia’s decree, midway through 2016, that the national cobalt threshold would be halved – to 100 micrograms per litre of urine – bringing it into line with the wider international standard. This took effect on 1 September, the start of spring; a new cobalt plasma threshold was also introduced.

  What shocked even hardened racing observers was an email the horseman received from Racing Victoria. Four months after being handed a 12-month ‘timeout’, six months of which was suspended, he was offered a fresh chance to appeal the penalty. It was a legal bolt from the blue.

  According to Terry Bailey, the offer was made after the legal teams of the four Victorian trainers disqualified for cobalt abuse – Mark Kavanagh, Danny O’Brien, and Lee and Shannon Hope – appealed before the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal. As part of their defence, they alleged that two of the laboratories handling the horses’ urine samples in 2014 had not been properly accredited to test for cobalt.

  Bailey insisted that offering Peter Moody new leave to appeal did not mean Racing Victoria accepted that the testing process was flawed. ‘Not at all. We absolutely stand by our case,’ the chief steward said, explaining the matter to racing media. ‘It was a courtesy letter advising [Moody] of the accreditation issue being raised in these other matters [and] that the opportunity is open to him to pursue the same argument via appeal if he wishes.’

  But at least one legal expert steeped in racing law saw the unprecedented move as akin to Racing Victoria ‘sending up a white flag’.

  The trainer, whose own lawyer was overseas,
was less sure what it meant. ‘I don’t know what to make of it,’ he said. ‘It’s a bit different.’ He eventually declined the authority’s invitation to get back into the legal ring.

  At time of writing, Mark Kavanagh’s and Danny O’Brien’s appeals were before VCAT – and as the hearing started its third week, Justice Greg Garde was told that no laboratory in the world was accredited to test for cobalt in 2014. Days later, head vet Brian Stewart admitted he knew this. ‘My advice from RASL was that human accreditation was acceptable,’ Dr Stewart said.

  Lawyer Damian Sheales, for the trainers, also alleged that Racing Victoria’s chairman of stewards was being ‘untruthful on all matters relating to cobalt in 2014’. But Terry Bailey said he was unaware of any accreditation issues with the ChemCentre or Hong Kong Jockey Club laboratories until he read about it in the media earlier in the year. The chief steward told VCAT he believed both were approved racing laboratories, as outlined in the Racing Australia Rules of Racing.

  Bailey explained that he became concerned about cobalt in the industry when a bottle of the substance was inadvertently delivered to the Integrity Department several years earlier. He worried it would be used to affect the performance of race horses. And that was the reason he wanted a threshold rule introduced.

  If the tribunal finds in favour of the trainers, there will be an explosive aftermath to what has already been an incendiary chapter in Australian racing. Many more months in a higher court could follow for all concerned, with possibly major repercussions for Racing Victoria’s integrity team. Civil suits by several parties, among them Peter Moody, might become possible.

  Nevertheless, weeks out from the end of the trainer’s suspension, Mick Bryant reflected on how his now 47-year-old friend and colleague of two decades was going. ‘To be honest, I’ve never seen him happier,’ the equine chiropractor said.

  The two men were about to embark on a military history tour, their second in two years. Having been to Turkey, Cyprus, Greece and Vietnam ahead of the spring of 2015, they were heading to Phuoc Tuy Province for what turned out to be a contentious commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan.

  It made sense. When asked initially about the horseman, Bryant had mentioned Roland Perry’s book on General Sir John Monash, a choice that reflected his friend’s fascination with the Australian military leader. The book’s subtitle, The Outsider Who Won a War, says much about the soldier, and perhaps the trainer too.

  What’s next in this ripping ‘boy’s own’ yarn, which started in western Queensland and has eventually taken in the world? Some close to Peter Moody say he will never train again, certainly not under Terry Bailey, preferring to build a more diverse portfolio in and around racing. Others believe he will need to be hands-on with horses, and soon, but in a much smaller stable. ‘He says never say never,’ Michael Bryant says. ‘But who knows?’

  Whatever happens, it’s fair to predict that the man they call ‘Moods’ will continue to cut a swathe through the crowd, as he goes about the business of horses.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  SOMETIMES A STORY takes on a life of its own. This has certainly been one of those.

  When Jeanne Ryckmans and Kelly Fagan approached me to write about Peter Moody’s life and career, they saw it as a tale of a horseman making good – the strapping kid from the backblocks of Queensland who became the face of Australian racing, nationally and internationally. And Peter was surely a great Aussie character: a man with his own style, his own voice, and his own way of dealing with authority. They had no way of knowing how quickly his story would turn into the saga of a very public figure under siege.

  Nevertheless, Peter was courteous and co-operative throughout the nine months that I followed his tracks across three states, sitting down to talk on a number of occasions. He also helped connect me with the small group of family and friends who know him best. Given the pressure he was under for much of this time, it showed a genuine generosity of spirit.

  I also thank Peter’s mother, Jan Moody, for her hospitality and for sharing her family memories; looking through old Moody photos one Saturday afternoon with her remains my favourite moment of this project. Peter’s wife, Sarah Moody, was also a welcoming host who provided a unique perspective on her husband and friend.

  Mick Bryant was a vital link in the telling of this saga through his honest, detailed recollections, as well as his patience and good humor. As well, the half-hour I spent with Terry Catip at his property in Warwick was quietly inspiring. Brett Cavanough added robust colour via a couple of phone conversations from Albury.

  I will always appreciate the fact that Mick Price and Robert Smerdon found time to discuss their colleague during one of Victorian racing’s busiest times, and, as always, I value greatly owner Terry Henderson’s observations. Peter Angus, Gary Crispe, Lee Evsion, Tony Haydon, Neil Jenkinson, Matt Martin, Bill Mitchell and Gary Mudgway were also considerate with their time and their comments.

  On a personal note, great thanks to Julian Welch, editor extraordinaire; first reader Marion Frith; the irrespressible Lyn Tranter; the Mediascript Express transcribing team; and to all my colleagues, family and friends who listened as this tale took shape. It might not have a ‘proper’ ending, but it’s certainly had a few twists and turns!

  NOTES

  In researching this book, I’ve conducted many original interviews, sometimes talking to individuals more than once. Those conversations provide the heart of this story. But much of Peter Moody’s professional life has played out in public, and so I’ve been able to draw on various reports in newspapers, online racing sites and radio broadcasts for specific detail. Those sources are listed here, by chapter.

  PROLOGUE

  ‘the ultimate decision that …’: Moody, quoted in Shane Anderson, ‘Moody confirms intention to quit’, Racing.com, 21 March 2016.

  CHAPTER 5

  ‘currently there is no evidence …’: Ali Mobasheri & Christopher J. Proudman, ‘Cobalt chloride doping in racehorses: Concerns over a potentially lethal practice’, The Veterinary Journal, 205 (3): 335–338.

  ‘grave concerns over a potentially …’: Mobasheri, quoted in Peter La, ‘Racehorses at risk from misuse of cobalt, new study finds’, media release, University of Surrey, 18 June 2015.

  ‘“Why wouldn’t it?” …’: Scollay, quoted in T.D. Thornton, ‘Cobalt: How big a problem in U.S.?’, Thoroughbred Daily News, January 2015.

  ‘I’m devastated to be informed …’: Moody, quoted in Patrick Bartley, ‘Peter Moody may face disqualification after runner’s positive swab to cobalt’, Sydney Morning Herald, 13 January 2015.

  ‘We have had the drug’s presence …’: Bailey, quoted in Matt Stewart & Rod Nicholson, ‘Mark Kavanagh, Danny O’Brien and Peter Moody facing potential bans after horses test positive to outlawed substance cobalt’, Herald Sun, 14 January 2015.

  ‘if he’d been a horse …’: Andrew Rule, ‘Terry Bailey is facing his toughest test since being appointed in 2004 to clean up Victorian harness racing’, Herald Sun, 8 September 2012.

  ‘We’ve all got families …’: Melissa Fyfe, ‘The lone ranger: Terry Bailey’s battle to clean up racing’, Good Weekend, 13 February 2016.

  ‘How much is too much? …’ Moody, quoted in Rob Nicholson, ‘Moody quits ATA in protest’, Racenet, 8 April 2014.

  ‘any misunderstanding …’: Darryl Sherer, ‘All Caulfield and Flemington trainers to hand over keys to stewards’, Racenet, 11 April 2014.

  ‘Veterinary experts claim …’: Michael Hutak, ‘Cobalt from the blue: time to register racing’s vets’, The Drum, 20 January 2015.

  ‘shaking, trembling, sweating up’ and ‘sweated up like crazy …’: Clinton Payne, ‘Explosive allegations on first day of Sam Kavanagh cobalt and caffeine inquiry’, Racenet, 9 June 2015.

  ‘it was alleged that Moody …’: Racing.com staff, ‘RV stewards issue Moody cobalt charges’, Racing.com, 10 July 2015.

  ‘I was very disappointed …’ and ‘He
wasn’t receiving …’: Moody, quoted in Shane Anderson, ‘Comment: Moody in for fight of career’, Racing.com, 17 July 2015.

  ‘He was using a powder …’ and ‘received large doses …’: Bailey, quoted in Matt Stewart, ‘Cobalt saga: Peter Moody hit with three charges over Lidari’s positive test’, Daily Telegraph, 10 July 2015.

  CHAPTER 6

  ‘We’re basically farmers and stockmen …’: Ramsey, quoted in Adam Pengilly, ‘Willing and able: How “Big Red” became Australian breeder and Hong Kong’s best Friend’, Sydney Morning Herald, 15 June 2015.

  CHAPTER 7

  ‘I don’t feel this case …’ and ‘I respect their right …’: Moody, quoted in Daryl Timms, ‘No coming back for trainers Mark Kavanagh and Danny O’Brien if stood down immediately in cobalt case, says barrister Damian Sheales’, Herald Sun, 29 July 2015.

  ‘Having considered all …’ and ‘The stewards are …’: Bailey, quoted in Patrick Bartley, ‘Peter Moody, Mark Kavanagh, Danny O’Brien consider appealing Racing Victoria decision’, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 Aug 2015.

  ‘Eighteen months ago …’: Moody, quoted in Brad Bishop, ‘Emotional Peter Moody hits out’, Racing.com, 16 September 2015.

  ‘He told me that …’ and ‘Sal came back …’: Bailey, quoted in Patrick Bartley, ‘Chief steward denies Peter Moody “spy” claim’, Sydney Morning Herald, 16 September 2015.

  ‘They wanted me to work …’ Healy, quoted in Matt Stewart, ‘Racing Victoria chiefs offered Michael Healy secret payments to spy on Peter Moody’, Herald Sun, 16 September 2015.

  ‘I can certainly confirm …’: Bailey, quoted in Madeleine Morris, ‘Shooting dominates racing circles talk as biggest horse races of the year approach’, 7.30, ABC TV, 30 October 2015.

  ‘No, not at all …’ and ‘Firstly, we didn’t do it …’: Bailey, quoted in Tom Biddlington, ‘Bailey denies victimising Moody’, Racing.com, 17 September 2015.