Readers and contributors to BIT of a Yarn, This POST was started to extract some common sense and fair play from the RACE BOARD who rather than be open about evicting Gary Vile and effectively terminating the man’s career, they have chosen to use anonymity and an impersonal legal ground to evict him from stables and Awapuni. Gary Vile has been the voice of New Zealand Central District Trainers for 15 years.
If RACE employees do not like Gary Vile’s opinions why not request he not be the trainers representative? Gary Vile has broken no law of New Zealand nor any rule of racing prohibiting him from training racehorses and nor has he been said to have broken any rules of the RACE training facilities. The Trainers Association of New Zealand can only express its communal opinion and the Executive of the NZ Trainers Association have asked the RACE Board to explain why Gary is being evicted. The only answer forthcoming from the RACE Board is that it is in the hands of their lawyers.
If no law or rules have been contravened, and none have been, why is the Property Law month eviction notice being used to evict this spokesman for those who provide the product, the horses that produce the salaries of the RACE Administration?
Has RACE got plenty of disposable funds to avoid any individual exposing the reasons why Gary Vile should be evicted?
Whether the RACE Board and salaried employees like Gary Vile and his manner of expressing himself or not, for 15 years he has been the elected spokesman for the trainers of the Central Districts.
In February 2022 Gary Vile was given an eviction notice accompanied by a letter dated 2 December 2019 which included a warning RACE objected to his manner of communicating to RACE staff. The letter also advised there was no signed lease. The letter warned, the lease was therefore a month-to-month tenancy and he could be given a month to vacate. The letter also stated RACE would request NZTR to refuse Gary’s entries at Awapuni and Trentham race meetings.
Had Gary Vile received that letter in 2019 the content would have demanded legal clarification. Gary Vile never received that letter and there was no proof of it ever being sent.
That letter was signed by the now departed CEO Alasdair Robertson and the still current chairman Paul Humphries. Nothing ever came of whatever the unsent letter referred to. Until this year 2022.
Clearly some of the RACE staff have difficulties with Gary Vile’s opinions as spokesman for many trainers, but is that reason enough to destroy a man’s career?
Let’s now move to December 2021 when after RACE advising the racing world on the Television on the day of the races, that the track was in good racing condition. Trentham Track, was declared unsafe after the first event and the races abandoned. Within a very short time, minutes rather than hours or days, the two major races the Captain Cook Stakes and the Wellesley Stakes were moved to a Te Rapa meeting. Gary Vile the CD Trainers rep and spokesman was not asked to attend that critical meeting. He was en route home when the first of the complaints came through his phone from very aggravated Central Districts trainers, jockeys and owners. When an occasion arose Gary Vile expressed the district and other trainers dissatisfaction to representatives of RACE.
Have we reached a situation where it is no longer acceptable to express an opinion?
What is happening? An opinion representing the coal face of racing is unacceptable to suits who do not get their salaries deducted for races called off. But trainers jockeys and owners are left with expenses with no redress. AND what valid explanation could be given for the two major races to be given to the northern region?
It was hoped this POST moves the racing community to ask their RACE GROUP representatives to bring some common sense to this conundrum. Sit round a table. Are there unlimited funds available to fill the bank accounts of the RACE Board lawyers who also happen to be Board and Committee members of RACE. Are there such delicate personalities representing RACE suits, they must use court procedures even though the original lease, had it been signed, demanded every attempt other than court procedures be used. Can it be explained why a letter signed and obviously initiated by the ex CEO Alasdair Robertson has been produced years after its creation? Does this eviction relate to Mr. Robertson’s resignation as CEO of RACE? Why else produce an historical record that has no proof of delivery?
As the Chairman Humphries remains silent, perhaps the departed Mr. Alasdair Robertson has the explanation why action was not taken in 2019 when he composed his letter? Is it Mr. Robertson who will explain to an open court what it was and why not actioned in 2019 before his departure as CEO of RACE, but still remaining currently active on behalf of the RACE Group. Let common sense prevail and someone get the RACE Board to sit round a table and not require court proceedings to expose the secrecy and timing of the RACE administration. Remembering NZTR and the RACING INTEGRITY BOARD will not address the issue. If this is not a RACING INTEGRITY BOARD and an NZTR issue when a Racing Club is evicting one of the NZ Trainers Association’s executive trainers, using an unsigned lease as the reason and in doing so ignoring the good will contained in the RACE ‘s own scripted lease, what value for Racing are these salaried administrators?
