Racing's rulers have denied suggestions they are losing control following a series of damaging claims

 

Racing's rulers have denied suggestions they are losing control following a series of damaging claims about drug use, race fixing and criminal involvement in the industry, reports The Age.

It says: But they accept that racing's image is taking a hit - unfairly, they insist - as a series of revelations that strike to the core of the sector's integrity continue to issue from media, insiders and police.

Racing authorities said on Tuesday they wanted to take tougher, swifter action to weed out cheats and any criminal element infiltrating the industry, but their hands were tied unless information uncovered by police in a criminal investigation can be given to racing authorities.

Police are not permitted to pass on such findings - sometimes discovered through phone taps - because a body such as Racing Victoria is a regulatory organisation and not a law enforcement agency, a situation RV chief executive Bernard Saundry described as ''very frustrating''.

Dayle Brown, the head of RV's integrity operations, said: ''We need the co-operation of the enforcement bodies so we can act, but we have been stymied from getting access to this information.''

Brown said that fostered a public image that racing regulators were ''in a state of paralysis, that we can't go forward'' when authorities had been seeking information sharing for several years.