Afternoon all,
Many of you will be aware of some turmoil created by HRSA Ltd. board member Sharon Cimarosti.
It has become apparent that her actions at board level are significantly impeding the ability of harness racing’s controlling body to function effectively.
After a vote of no confidence in her at the recent HRSA Ltd AGM – supported by seven of the eight shareholders in attendance – Ms Cimarosti shows no sign that things will change. This has resulted in a number of the remaining board members, an incoming board member (who has not even attended a meeting yet) and senior executive staff being prepared to resign forthwith if Ms Cimarosti remains a board member.
This would be catastrophic for our industry and may result in the cessation of racing for a period of time. Hence, discussion among numerous club shareholder delegates has resulted in the motion attached below.
Be in no doubt that time is of the essence and a positive outcome is critically important to our industry and the people involved in it.
Please vote, sign, scan and return the motion paper to the undersigned at this email address.
Regards, Steve Norman
Acting for HRSA Ltd. Member Clubs
Stephen Norman
Allenby Lodge Stud
After reading this email which was distributed to people far and wide in the South Australian harness racing industry, if I were Mr Stephen Norman of Allenby Stud I would be saving up every penny I could get my hands on for legal fees, for this missive is well beyond the pale and crosses straight over into defamation territory, and the Sharon Cimarosti that I know is not the sort of person who takes her reputation being trashed unfairly, and is not afraid to take legal action to stop it.
S. Cimarosti was a lawfully appointed and very able member of the board Harness Racing South Australia (HRSA), the control body in South Australia.
She didn’t agree with the direction that the board was taking, which was a stance that history soon proved to be correct.
A number of other members of the board who had backed the new strategy got pissed off at her, and put a forward a motion to kick her off.
Just as in Norman’s widely sent email, no real reason was given for wanting to do it.
All that was said was that:
- Cimarostri was impeding the ability of HRSA to function effectively
- Oher people – including a number who had never met Cimarosti, and weren’t even there – didn’t want to work with the woman, even though they weren’t
- It would be a catastrophe for SA harness racing if she remained as a director
- Racing may cease for a period if she continued in her role
- Sacking Cimarosti was critically important to the industry
Wow, it sounds bad doesn’t it?
Like the woman is Hitler or something, a bombastic dictator who was going to bring the sport to it’s knees.
There was just one problem.
No-one – not Norman or his comrades – ever said why.
S. Cimarosti was just bad, because a small clutch of self-interested idiots who had been progressively destroying the sport for years said so.
I don’t think that sort of reasoning would hold up in the Supreme Court, do you?
Not unless it’s the Supreme Court of Salem, which it’s not.
Steve Norman has made a very bad mistake here.
He has identified himself as being the owner of Allenby Stud, a private business concern that does not have any representational rights or place at the board table, and the proclamations he has made in while identifying his private capacity are – in the absence of any specific claims, evidence, or proof to support them – defamatory in the absolute extreme.
A little bird tells me that Sharon Cimarosti has been seen regularly entering and leaving her lawyer’s office in recent weeks, and that her lawyer has been seen in the vicinity of the Supreme Court registry carrying a thick pile of papers even more recently.
I hope that Mr S. Norman has been saving up his pennies.
He is going to need them I suspect.