Inquiry into Ben Currie-trained horses

Sunday 8 April 2018, 2:26pm

An inquiry into activities at top trainer Ben Currie's stable on race morning at Toowoomba will resume after material gathered is examined.

Currie said he had done nothing wrong and was confident he had nothing to worry about.

The Queensland Racing Integrity Commission issued a media release on Saturday about the inquiry rather than leaving it to stewards.

It is a policy that any information from investigations by QRIC's intelligence bureau is released through its commissioner Ross Barnett.

The leading trainer on winners this season in Queensland, Currie had 18 runners on Saturday and won the feature Weewtood Handicap and Toowoomba Guineas.

Barnett said members of the QRIC's Integrity Investigations Team observed one of Currie's employees acting suspiciously near a number of horses on Saturday morning.

"IIT officers have interviewed the employee and trainers Mark Currie and Ben Currie about their observations and have also seized some items from the stable including CCTV equipment which they believe will assist them in their inquiries," Barnett said.

"Stewards opened an inquiry and took initial evidence from the stable employee Mark Currie and Ben Currie and a QRIC veterinarian has taken saliva, urine and blood samples from seven horses."

All the horses concerned were allowed to run.

QRIC could not put a date on when the inquiry would resume.

It will have to wait on results from the tests on the horses, equipment taken from the stables and examination of CCTV footage.

It is believed this will take at least a week.

– 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 »