Weir courts appeal, whilst rest at The Bool.

As the Victorian industry celebrates the start of the famous Warrnambool May carnival Tuesday (ok it is April 29), the man who for so often dominated it, Darren Weir, will be at the Victorian Court of Appeal.

Weir is seeking legal relief as to the starting date of a Victorian Racing Tribunal two-year disqualification they imposed on September 9 last year.

That penalty was added to an already served four-year disqualification that passed in early February 2023.

But delays in additional charges being laid by Racing Victoria Stewards, investigated then heard, found and ultimately submissions decided saw Weir (and fellow accused Jarrod McLean and Tyson Kermond) had been stood aside for another 19 months before the VRT reached their conclusions.

If stands, Weir will have to serve a seven-and-a-half years penalty.

A timeline for the events of the case can be read here:  https://www.clarkofthecourse.com/post/how-weir-got-to-here

In original court papers lodged by solicitor Katherine Brideoake, of Guthrie & Associates, Weir’s appeal says the original penalty was “altogether excessive and out of proportion" and that the “tribunal fell into jurisdictional error”.

The appeal claims the tribunal had not properly accounted for Weir’s rehabilitation, his original four-year disqualification, the common element between the two bans, and the unexplained delay between the end of his first disqualification in February 2023 and the laying of new charges in September 2023.

The appeal claims the tribunal also failed to consider delays in the penalty phase of Weir’s case.

The appeal only focuses on the legalities around the decisions and penalty not the admission of guilt of Weir (and other parties) in relation to the use of “jiggers”, or electrical apparatus on three horses at Weir’s Warrnambool stables going back to October 2018 on the eve of the Flemington Cup carnival.

Animal cruelty charges were dismissed without conviction in the Warrnambool Magistrates Court in December 2022 though a fine of $36,000 was imposed, “Each of the accused (including McLean and Keromnd)  has suffered considerable embarrassment, shame, and both financial and emotional affects over the course of the four-year period,” Magistrate Franz Holzer told the court at the time.

Weir’s appeal papers also claim the VRT failed to have regard to the “prohibition against impermissible double punishment” because the acts, facts and circumstances involving all charges were the same. It also claims that the VRT’s conclusion that “special circumstances” had not been established was unreasonable.

A success at the Victorian Court of Appeal, would allow Weir to consider a re-application for a trainer’s licence, otherwise he would remain sidelined until September 2026.

Though Weir’s original four-year-disqualification after a quick investigation and agreed to penalty in January 2019 ended in February 2023, the VRT ruled that Weir was able to establish a pre-training business at his Baringhup property from that expiration as he waded through eventual additional RV charges.

“He has been able to carry on a large enterprise relating to thoroughbred horses,” VRT chairman Judge Bowman said last September.

“This has been with the knowledge of the stewards, and it is not suggested in any way that it was in breach of the rules.

“At the same token, the period from the end of his disqualification on February 7, 2023,  cannot be seen as a period of penalty.”

But Bowman noted: There is no suggestion that any part of that delay (in the charges being laid and heard) is anyway attributable to him.

“The same could not be said of the stewards.

“Apart from anything else there is no acceptable explanation as to why there was such a delay between the expiry date of the four-year period of disqualification in February 2023 and laying of the present charges in September of that year.”

The Bowman judgment (supported by panel members Kathryn Kings and Des Gleeson), means that Weir will not have been able to train a horse for 7½ years, despite only being banned for six years.

Weir will be represented by Queensland KC Jim Murdoch, himself a licensed horse trainer, but at the helm of a raft of high profile successful recent cases involving Lindsay Hatch, Tom Smith and Chris Munce.

Jim Murdoch KC

He also represented trainer Todd Austin, wife Tami and jockey Ric McMahon in the most recent case involving a jigger use at the Birdsville racetrack in 2021.

The Supreme Court Hearing commences before Justice Finanzio Tuesday 10.30am.