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BY THE SPRING of 2007, Peter Moody was being hailed as a force to be reckoned with, a bush prince looking to become an urban king. Third on the Victorian training premiership table, he continued to travel in search of contests his horses could win as they strengthened their confidence and helped their connections pay their bills. Yet one connection in particular was proving a thorn in Moody’s side, as were Victoria’s beleaguered racing officials.

In the weeks leading up to the biggest races on the Australian racing calendar, the industry had been struggling with an outbreak of equine influenza (EI) across Queensland and New South Wales. The debilitating illness prevented hundreds of horses from travelling interstate; even those who had arrived from overseas were not allowed to take part in races. EI played havoc with racing and breeding plans nationwide, as horses were ordered to ‘stand still’ until given an official all clear.

The last thing the sport needed at this critical moment was another drama, especially one linked to Melbourne’s ‘gangland wars’. But that’s exactly what it got when stewards could not be convinced of the ownership of one of the trainer’s rising stars.

Who did Pillar of Hercules really belong to? That was the central question police and racing authorities were asking, unpersuaded by the names on the gifted colt’s registration papers.

While Sarah Moody owned 25 per cent, the lion’s share was registered to an Irene Meletsis, but authorities feared that drug tsar Tony Mokbel’s older brother, Horty, was involved in that 75 per cent stake. Both the Mokbel brothers were in jail at the time – Tony in Athens, where he was fighting extradition proceedings, and Horty in Melbourne, where he faced charges of trafficking $40 million worth of amphetamines.

The brothers had longstanding links with Victorian horse racing circles, running the notorious betting group known as the Tracksuit Gang through the 1990s. They had also owned a number of horses, but were now ‘warned off’ racetracks and banned from owning thoroughbreds.

The matter came to a head when Peter Moody was issued a ‘stand still’ notice of his own by Victoria’s Supreme Court, and Pillar of Hercules was not permitted to race again until the confusion about his ownership was cleared up. In an affidavit tendered in court, police alleged that the purchase of the three-year-old as a $475,000 yearling had been at least partly financed by Horty Mokbel, who they argued was the true owner of Ms Meletsis’ share as part of a money-laundering scheme.

To back this up, the affidavit claimed that police had intercepted phone and text messages between Mokbel and Moody discussing the horse; for good measure, they added that Ms Meletsis knew nothing about horses and was not a racegoer. The affidavit also claimed that the trainer continued to rent stables near Caulfield Racecourse from Horty Mokbel’s wife. This was certainly an unwanted twist in the Moody tale, and the irony that his first Melbourne landlord now cast a very long shadow was not lost on the trainer.

Despite the allegations made in the Supreme Court, Racing Victoria – perhaps in a nod of good faith to the stable – accepted Pillar of Hercules’ nomination in the Group 1 Mackinnon Stakes, optimistic the matter could be resolved in time. The best way of doing this, once and for all, was deemed to be by public auction.

The city’s august daily paper, the Age, had fun with the concept, running a mock advertisement on its front page that read: ‘For Sale: Stake in glamour Spring Carnival racehorse. Worth around $1m. New owner must have no crime links. Needs to go 11am Friday. Good chance for Mackinnon Stakes.’

Not good for racing’s image, this scenario was potentially even worse for Peter Moody’s growing reputation as a trainer. Colourful characters had long played their part on the Aussie turf, but the Mokbels were associated with murder and drug-related mayhem – not exactly a racing ‘romance’.

Transparency was at the heart of the issue, and it was arranged for the colt to be auctioned as an in-form race horse and potential stallion. Given that Pillar of Hercules was deep into his spring racing preparation, it was decided the best place to hold the sale was at Caulfield Racecourse, not far from Moody’s stable and the colt’s own stall.

So, at 11 a.m. sharp on the eve of the 2007 Victoria Derby, auctioneer Peter Heagney stepped through a tray of disinfectant – an EI security precaution – and gathered the 100-strong crowd around him, ready to take bids. Moody was there, looking unusually pensive in a wide-brimmed hat; so too were chief steward Des Gleeson and a plainclothes police photographer snapping shots of participants, many of them high-profile ‘racing identities’.

‘This is a very unusual event, a history-making event,’ the respected agent called out to the throng. Apparently, the last race horse to be auctioned alone had been Shannon, back in 1947. For the record, Heagney made it clear that 100 per cent of Pillar of Hercules was being sold on this day.

A ripple of anticipation swept through the crowd as the young horse finally arrived, looking somewhat perplexed by this change in his daily routine. He and a mate started to walk in circles in a saddling yard as bidding started. Robbie Waterhouse made the first play at $1.1 million.

In serious opposition was Dean Watt, manager of Dynamic Syndications, and the two quickly tried to outdo each other, with Watt finally getting the nod with a bid of $1.8 million. As Pillar of Hercules was led back to his stall, a new question had to be answered: who would train him for his new owners? There were three or four horsemen, and one famous horsewoman, said to be under consideration.

Through it all, Peter Moody kept his poker face in place. He didn’t want to lose the horse to a competitor – that much was clear. Then again, he and his wife had just made a tidy profit by selling their 25 per cent share in the colt. No matter what happened next, they had something to show for the tribulation.

Watt decided to leave the three-year-old with the stable, so he could line up in the Mackinnon the next afternoon from the yard he knew. Moody predicted that the horse was ready to run the race of his life at Flemington. ‘I think he’s a hell of a horse,’ he told the press.

But there was more to come: who actually owned him now? Dean Watt had been the winning bidder, but who was in the new syndicate he quickly put together? As the trainer dared take a breath, Watt did his best to reassure the authorities and media that all was well.

‘There are no problems with the bona fides,’ he said. ‘A major client of mine, Bill Vlahos, will take the majority share, while I am delighted to announce Sarah Moody will have an equity position in the horse as well.’ Vlahos, it transpired, would pick up $1.2 million of this tab, essentially taking over the 75 per cent share that had been in question.

Sarah Moody, at the time describing the circumstances surrounding the sale as causing ‘turmoil’, understood she would be a 10 per cent shareholder in the horse. Watt kept a share, as did another Dynamic Syndication client, Joe Zeaiter. The stewards seemed happy with this outcome, with Des Gleeson declaring the colt could now race again. ‘I’ve got no problems with his bona fides,’ the chief steward said.

‘It is a very good buy at that price,’ Dean Watt said. ‘It’s hard to get quality horses like this at the best of times. We could go to the sales and buy a yearling at the same price and take our chances on how it will end up at the track; with this horse, we know what we are dealing with. If he can win the Mackinnon Stakes, then his value would skyrocket immediately to between $8 and $10 million as a stallion prospect.’

Pillar of Hercules did not win the elite weight-for-age event the following day, and the potential so many saw in him on that overcast Friday morning at Caulfield would prove too great a burden. Eventually sold in 2010 as a ‘tried horse’ for $46,000 to a businessman keen to set up a stud in Malaysia, he was sent to a farm in Victoria to await his international call-up, covering a few mares in the intervening months to get the hang of his new duties.

Gary Mudgway, manager of Grange Thoroughbreds, oversaw his care through this period. He had known him as a yearling; in fact, Mudgway probably had a longer association with the horse than anyone. ‘I bought his mother when she was carrying him, actually,’ he explains.

Astonishingly, Pillar of Hercules’ latest owner suffered a stroke about a year later, and was then discovered to be in serious debt. In a way, this didn’t surprise Mudgway. ‘All his life, it seems like he was a magnet for nefarious types,’ he laughs. ‘At the end of the day, I took over the ownership of him.’

Given that the sire-in-waiting had hardly been able to set the world on fire as a private stallion, Gary Mudgway decided to give him one more preparation as a race horse. He had retired ‘relatively sound’, he reasoned; why not give him a chance to recapture some of his form on the track?

Three years and four months after Pillar of Hercules had last raced, and six years since his last win, he travelled to Adelaide to face the starter in the Perks Accountants (BenchMark 90), only to be pulled out of the race with a tendon injury. By this time a gelding, the nine-year-old returned to his old friend’s farm in Victoria.

Eventually, Mudgway was contacted by a woman keen to retrain the former headline-maker as an equestrian horse. Kate Fenner offered to pay the grand sum of $1 for the privilege. ‘I don’t think Gary ever accepted that from me,’ she says with a laugh. Nevertheless, ‘Pillar’ now lives with her and her partner, a vet – and has a new name. ‘We call him Cream Puff, he’s such a lovely-natured horse,’ she says.

Mudgway is pleased. ‘He was a nice horse, so I think it was a very good ending,’ the horseman reflects. ‘He arrived with a good yarn, and left with a good yarn.’

A worse fate befell Bill Vlahos. After establishing himself as the mastermind behind a punting club called The Edge, he became a major ‘buyer’ of yearlings, shooting to international prominence as the successful bidder on two of Black Caviar’s siblings: with BC3 Thoroughbreds, Vlahos purchased her yearling sister for $2.6 million in 2012, and a year later her half-brother for a record $5 million. To veteran industry observers, this buying spree seemed far too good to be true. They were correct. ‘Dollar Bill’ Vlahos never paid for the colt, nicknamed Jimmy, who had to be euthanased on humane grounds as he was suffering from the debilitating hoof condition laminitis. He had just turned two.

After The Edge collapsed with debts of $194 million, Vlahos declared bankruptcy in December 2013, six years after the forced auction of Peter Moody’s ‘hell of a horse’.

Fortunately, the trainer’s luck went in precisely the opposite direction.