🔒 🔒 Knight’s Choice finds home at Ballarat as Dixon defends Macedon Lodge change

Michael Dixon has defended the action taken by his family’s Macedon Racing to dismiss trainers John Symons and Sheila Laxon, leaving spring carnival-bound horses in limbo.

As revealed by The Straight on Wednesday, the Melbourne Cup-winning trainers had their contract to train at Macedon Lodge, north-west of Melbourne, terminated with immediate effect.

The horses remaining under Symons and Laxon were not permitted to be ridden under saddle as the pair scramble to find alternative arrangements which includes 2024 Melbourne Cup winner Knight’s Choice.

He left Macedon Lodge on Thursday and transferred to Ballarat where the trainers will continue with his Melbourne Cup preparation.

Promising Zoustar three-year-old Star Of Macedon is expected to join Knight’s Choice on Friday, with as many as 25 other horses to also move with Symons and Laxon in the coming days and weeks.

Bruce and Michael Dixon-owned Macedon Racing last month appointed Sara Ryan as its trainer based at Macedon Lodge with Symons and Laxon initially expected to stay with a stable of their own.

However, as Ryan began work at Macedon Lodge this week, that arrangement with Laxon and Symons was cut short by the Dixons in what was described as a “business call”.

The Straight has been contacted by owners of Symons and Laxon who were dismayed by Macedon Racing’s handling of the situation.

Horses in their care who were transferred to Ryan were able to continue to be trained as normal, Dixon told The Straight on Thursday.

He also downplayed the disruption to Symons and Laxon-trained horses who couldn’t be ridden on the Macedon Lodge tracks on Thursday.

“Knight’s Choice is obviously one that’s been moved on and that’s happened immediately,” Dixon said.

“If they (owners) want to move the horses, they can. The voting’s out today, it’s literally one day that they’ll miss out on training.

“They can go down the road, they can go wherever, wherever the owners want to take them. The horses won’t be in any jeopardy of (missing) any training.” 

Macedon Racing bought more than 20 yearlings at the sales earlier this year, with Laxon revealing at least eight of the new season two-year-olds will transfer to Ballarat with them.

“I think there’s about 27 (horses) all up that the owners have elected to keep them in training with us,” Laxon told The Straight. 

“So, I think what we’ll do, when we go home and we have a spare five minutes, we’ll sit down and work through each of the horses and what stage they’re at.” 

Laxon said since Wednesday’s developments “people have been so supportive, it’s just been fantastic”.

“We’ve been offered paddocks to spell them in and what have you, so we’ll go through all that scenario and put some horses out in the paddocks for a bit longer and just reassess where we go and what we do with the main group of them,” she said. 

Macedon Racing is managing owner for a number of horses trained at Macedon Lodge and it’s what will happen with members of syndicates who would prefer to have their horses trained by Laxon and Symons where issues may arise.

Contradicting what Laxon indicated, Dixon said the owners of about half of the horses in training had agreed to have them transferred to Ryan, who will operate her Macedon Lodge stable alongside her base at Wyong on the NSW Central Coast.

Dixon said owners had the option of selling their shares online if they were unhappy with the agreement.

“We’re the managing owner of all of our yearlings that we buy because we’re the ones putting our neck on the chopping block,” Dixon said. 

“We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at each sale and if an owner wants to take 100 per cent of a horse, we’ll happily give them the ownership card and the managing owner’s rights, for sure.

“But, when you’re a syndicate, which is what we are, we allow external shareholders to purchase from two and a half percent to whatever percent you want, there has to be a managing owner.

“And Macedon Racing, given its liability to the auction houses, will be the managing owner.”

The stable returns lodged over the next few days will tell which horses have ended up where and who has sided with who.