Extraordinary vitriol within Australian racing intensifies as Harrington prepares to speak in Melbourne

BHA chief executive Julie Harrington will on Wednesday be in Melbourne addressing the audience on the first day of an event that brings together leaders from across the racing world but which is being staged against the backdrop of extraordinary conflict in the host country.

Harrington has been unveiled as a panellist for the 39th Asian Racing Conference's opening discussion of "racing’s most important issues", yet nothing is more important, pressing or sensational in Australian racing than the worsening of what were already appalling relations between the sport's governing bodies in Melbourne and Sydney.

Newspapers have this week given prominent coverage to allegations that Racing Victoria, along with the racing associations of Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania, was engaged in a secret bid to exile Racing New South Wales and its controversial chief executive Peter V'landys by setting up a breakaway national authority that would exclude Sydney.