We are told by various sources that the person who took the video of Mitchell Hutchings bashing a tied up and defenceless horse with a hammer is the anti-hero’s brother Brett Hutchings.
Brett Hutchings is the track curator at the Parkes Harness Racing Club.
He was also the recipient of last year’s Parkes Young Driver of the Year Award presented by the club.
Harness Racing CEO John Dumesny was for 8 years first a Committee Member and then President of the Parkes Harness Racing Club in the 1980’s, prior to his appointment as then Racing Manager with the NSW Harness Racing Club in the late 1980’s.
Mr Dumesny and his wider family have had a 100 year association with the club and with harness racing in the Parkes area, an association that he maintains to this day as a breeder in the district.
The Dumesny family and the Hutchings family have a had a long, and many say close, relationship with the Hutchings family that stretches back decades.
Personal involvement in the harness racing industry
My family has had a long association with harness racing, and in 2013 my family celebrated 100 years in the sport, dating back to my grandfather’s involvement in the industry as a driver. I have been involved in all aspects of the harness racing industry including as an owner, trainer, driver and breeder.
li I am currently a Standardbred horse breeder and maintain a facility for breeding at my property near Parkes, NSW.
Signed Statement of John Dumesny to Australian Competition Tribunal 22 February 2017
John Dumesny’s brother Tony Dumesny, a prominent breeder in the district, is the Secretary of the Parkes Harness Racing Club.
Another brother Michael Dumesny is the race caller for the club, and appears to also perform the club’s media duties.
It is not suggested that either Tony or Michael Dumesny have any knowledge of, or involvement in, these matters.
The facts detailed above are provided merely by way of background.
It has now come to light that the recording of a the horrible attack on a horse with a hammer that we published yesterday on this site wasn in fact made at sometime in 2020.
A concerned owner of standardbreds trained by members of the Hutchings family made a series of complaints to Harness Racing NSW about the gross abuse of the animal that year.
The email containing these complaints is published in full in the next story.
According to this person no action has been taken in the 2 years since against Hutchings, who on the basis of the video evidence alone is, in my opinion and that of many others, utterly unfit to be licensed by HRNSW, or to participate in the harness racing in any capacity.
Yet a search of the disciplinary database of HRNSW reveals nothing about this matter being dealt with, just as the complainant says.
No inquiry.
No charges.
No decision.
No penalty.
This is a scandal, an affront to human decency even, and an utter abrogation of Harness Racing NSW’s obligation to protect racing animals under it’s control from wanton abuse and serious harm caused by participants that it licenses, and whose activities it is responsible for regulating.
The public and the NSW Government deserve to be told what has gone on here, and why.
To this effect, we call for a fully independent inquiry into these matters.
This inquiry must be conducted at complete arms length from Harness Racing NSW, with members of that organisation having no involvement whatsoever other than as witnesses and providers of required information to the independent investigators.
We cannot put our heads in the sand, and the time for turning blind eyes is over.
This is not a trotting matter.
These are criminal offences.
Criminal offences that appear on the face of it to have been potentially covered up by the regulator.
Something must be done.
The integrity of harness racing depends upon it.