Melbourne Cup winning jockey Michelle Payne has been fined $1,500 by Racing Victoria stewards after pleading guilty to a tweet made about Flemington’s track manager Mick Goodie.
Michelle Payne took to twitter on Monday to for Goodie’s position to be review claiming that he did not prepare a fair surface on Saturday for the Australian Guineas meeting.
Her tweet read:
“maybe Mick Goodie’s position needs to be reviewed? He has no one to answer to, gets away with it time and time again,” Payne tweeted.
Payne then wen’t into more detail saying
“Mowing the grass shorter on the inside because it’s different grass, he (Goodie) should put the rail out if he wants to avoid that patch of grass,” Payne said.
“He’s got 30 metres of track and sometimes you might want to be on three metres of that track.
“It can happen anywhere but it just happens time and time again at Flemington.
“Obviously a very hard job to be a track manager, there’s no doubt about that, but this shouldn’t be happening so many times on our best track which is a beautiful big, track.”
Payne fronted stewards on Tuesday at an inquiry into her comments on Twitter regarding the track at Saturday’s meeting and one in particular directed at Goodie.
She pleaded guilty to breaching the rule regarding conduct towards officials.
“Stewards found that the comments posted in her tweet were improper and/or insulting towards Mr Mick Goodie in his official capacity as Flemington Racecourse Manager,” Racing Victoria said.
Payne, who did not ride at Flemington on Saturday, has deleted the offending tweet from her account.
Have Your Say: Should she have been fined or not? – Leave a comment below.
So @mj_payne fined $1500 tweet remove (it already was) inquiry today (interview) pleaded guilty re Mick Goodie @Flemington comments.
— Bruce Clark (@snowyclark) March 7, 2017
