Aaron Purcell to take over Maher stable

Thursday 28 September 2017, 5:29pm

Warrnambool-based Aaron Purcell is ready to take over the staff and horses of suspended trainer Ciaron Maher.

Racing Victoria stewards have given an in-principle agreement for Purcell to take over from Maher on Monday.

Maher was on Monday suspended for six months and fined $75,000 by the Racing Appeals and Disciplinary Board over the ownership bona fides of five horses, including Group One winning mare Azkadellia, that were owned by convicted conman Peter Foster.

The horses were raced in the name of Ben Connolly, Maher's former racing manager.

RV chief steward Terry Bailey said there was a deed of agreement still to be signed but an in-principle agreement was in place.

"The main thing we wanted to be satisfied with was Mr Purcell was responsible for the employment of the staff and that he'd be spending the majority of his time at Caulfield," Bailey said.

"He's given that undertaking.

"There's a deed of agreement the parties need to sign which is with our legal team at the moment.

"The contents of that are no different to what we've had a verbal agreement on, so it's just a matter of getting signatures before Monday."

Purcell will continue with his Warrnambool base while spending the majority of his time at Caulfield until Maher returns to training next April.

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »