In a damning indictment on Racing NSW, Supreme Court Justice Patricia Bergin has declared that the strategy proposed by Racing NSW of appointing an administrator to the AJC and STC "plummeted the plaintiff’s lack of professionalism to an all time low."

Justice Bergin handed down her findings after a five day hearing in the NSW Supreme Court between Racing NSW and the AJC, STC and ThoroughVisioN Pty Ltd (TVN) to determine who has the final right over the awarding of racing's broadcast rights, either the Clubs and TVN, or the NSW governing body, Racing NSW.

While the actual judgment is a document contained 162 points, Justice Bergin answered the one question she had been searching for an answer for since day one, in a matter of two minutes.

The core of the case had been whether or not Racing NSW had the power to direct the Club’s to cancel their broadcasting contract with their own media company TVN, and to remain with SKY to June 2006.

"This first resolution has been at the core of this matter since last Tuesday," said Justice Bergin.

This afternoon she answered the question herself and it was a resounding "No."

"Having regard to that answer, there is really no requirement to answer any of the remaining questions."

"However having regard to the commercial decisions that have to be made in relation to the important matter of broadcasting the metropolitan races and the public interest therein, I have reached the view that there is some utility in attending to some of the other questions on the premise that the directions were within power."

"I am of the view that the directions were not in fact properly authorised for the reasons given."

"However if within power and authorised, I am satisfied that the directions are vitiated by a failure to provide procedural fairness in that for the reasons given in answer to part of question 2, there was a reasonable apprehension of bias in the plaintiff."

"The plaintiff had a responsibility to be open and fair with the defendants and in the public interest, to provide to them procedural fairness in respect of the decisions made by it as they affected the defendants’ rights."

"The plaintiff has placed much emphasis on its alleged motivation to act in the public interest of protecting wagering revenue."

"It has been suggested by the Chief Executive that the plaintiff was acting to ensure that the revenue distributed to the racing industry was maximised."

"I have little doubt that there was an aim akin to that buried somewhere in all of this."

"What is troubling is that in exercising its powers the plaintiff seemed to forget that it had to be fair to interested parties whose rights may be adversely affected by its conduct and decisions."

"The correspondence between the Chairman and the Chief Executive in particular demonstrate business strategies with the use of military epithets to describe the planned outcome suggesting that the war could be won."

"The Chairman expressed possessory interest in the “network”, claiming that he had two gorillas trying to damage “his network". Any fair-minded observer of this conduct would in my view have a reasonable apprehension of bias such that would infect each of the directions and justify the quashing of those directions," said Justice Bergin."

Had the whole case been conducted on a race course there is no doubt stewards would have charged Racing NSW with "excessive use of a whip on a horse out of contention."

This is a case that should never have gone to court in the first place.

"We're not happy we have had to go through this and we take no joy in this decision," said Tony King (Chief Executive AJC).

" While it vindicates our position, the fact our governing body chose to drag down the whole industry is bewildering and disappointing.

"Serious questions must be asked regarding the proprietary of Racing NSW.

"This is a very strong judgment and there can be no confusion over what has been said.

"This has cost an absolute fortune and we have been defending ourselves against our own ruling body!

"There has been constant reference to the business brains in Racing NSW, well perhaps they should have more racing brains in there.

"The costs here would be equivalent to five Group I races, money which should have gone to the industry."

Racing NSW's chairman Gary Pemberton, who has been conspicuous by his absence, was still a no-show at today's judgment.

“Certain individuals have brought the entire organization into disrepute."

"Gary Pemberton has driven a wedge between the metropolitan clubs and provincial and country."

"The only word I can use is bewilderment. Why would the ruling body support another body against a monopoly?????

"Where they lost sight is that they are a regulatory body. It is not about them forcing their commercial ideas on the race clubs."

"Whereas we (the clubs) live for racing, SKY and Tabcorp live for wagering."

STC Chief Executive Michael Kenny said he was disappointed although not surprised that Racing NSW continued to deny any wrongdoing.

“All along they’ve been a law unto themselves."

"They claim to be protecting the industry but all they’re doing is squandering the industry's money to protect Tabcorp’s monopoly."

"We’re glad this is behind us and are now focused on working with TVN from Wednesday onwards”, Kenny said.

Racing NSW's Peter V'Landys was adamant he would 'do it all again'

"We had to take action like any responsible regulatory body. Time will tell if we were wrong or not.

“All the time we were acting for the 63,000 participants in the NSW racing industry.

“I don’t feel sorry for Racing NSW.

“The Board meeting will consider tomorrow the question of appeal, but we have to await the review of counsel and their opinion.

“The legal fees are not the most important thing as we were trying to save the tens of millions in the future that could be lost to the wagering system.

“The weakness in our case was that we did not have time to expedite our case and respond to quite complex legal argument."

"It's very good news," said Peter Sweeney CEO of TVN.

"Now we can get on with the object of ThoroughVisioN and in particular the Warrnambool Carnival tomorrow."

The full judgment by Justice Patricia Bergin can be read here in the 'Court Decisions' SUPREME COURT

Photograph Martin King Sportpix