Aquanita owners seek to keep cash

RACING Victoria’s response to owners embroiled in the Aquanita doping scandal is unlikely to be made public until after the spring carnival.

RV stewards have assessed responses from owners issued with show- cause notices arguing why they shouldn’t return up to $ 2m in prizemoney won by horses caught up in the notorious scheme.

Several owners indicated they would submit reasons why they should not be penalised for the actions of the seven trainers and stable staff who were found to have doped horses in some of the nation’s biggest races.

Robert Smerdon and stable employees Greg, pictured, and Denise Nelligan were disqualified for life for their roles in the scheme, which involved the secretive topping up of horses on track with a blend b of sodium bicarbonate b and other substances.

RV found a total of 81 horses trained under the former Aquanita Racing banner at Caulfield were likely to have received illegal “top- ups”.

Owners were given until August 10 to show cause why they should not have to repay prizemoney.

SOCIAL media was up in arms but the whip protest drama at Swan Hill on Tuesday turned out to be much ado about nothing.

The armchair experts were sure the second versus first protest from Teodore Nugent on Yesmeena against Yoshi Mokuko ( Steven Vella) should have been upheld.

But stewards didn’t take long to dismiss the protest and their report makes it pretty obvious why. A lot of Vella’s socalled whip strikes weren’t strikes at all.