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Vincent Flanagan
Again
Not now playing devil’s advocate…..
Irish racing website….“On legal advice Jim Bolger will not take part in this week’s Oireachtas Hearing into the trainer’s own allegations that there is a ‘Lance Armstrong’ waiting to be found among the upper echelons of Ireland’s training ranks.
It initially seemed like a poor move on Jim Bolger’s part as the hearing offered him the opportunity to further expose ‘twenty years of steroid abuse within the sport.’ This platform could have been the ideal vehicle for him once he didn’t fall into the trap of naming any names.
But, in light of yesterday’s latest Paul Kimmage article, it’s now becoming clearer that Bolger’s absence is likely a prudent move.
Kimmage’s Sunday Independent piece gives us the first glimpse of the ‘smoking gun’ — extracts from a 14-page report from a ‘distinguished toxicologist’ in a laboratory in Suffolk that indicates suspicious findings in hair samples taken from a group of horses that had recently transferred from Ireland to an English trainer.
Kimmage’s information comes via a conversation Bolger had with the English trainer who commissioned the testing of the ex-Irish horses in his care.
According to extracts from the toxicologist’s report published yesterday there is no hard evidence of wrongdoing but a ‘balance of probability’ that ‘unidentified possible keto steroids’ were present in some of the samples from the six horses tested.
These results alone appear to fall some way short of the threshold for a racing authority to take action against any individual but it would seem that we are getting tantalisingly close to the discovery of the name or names that Bolger has been trying to avoid revealing.
We are told that the six horses in question travelled from Ireland to an English trainer in the summer of 2020. Bolger has stated that the steroid issue he perceives within the sport relates to at least one top-level Irish trainer so we can presume that these six horses were in training here prior to their move and it is therefore likely that at least some of them had won races in Ireland prior to the move.
The IHRB issued a report on Friday into their anti-doping efforts so far this year and this will presumably form the basis of their contribution to the Oireachtas Hearing.
In the first six month of 2021 they carried out 2,391 hair, blood and urine samples on horses at racecourses, point-to-points and in out of competition settings such as trainers’ yards, stud farms, sales consignors’ premises, pre-training premises and other equine premises.
Included in the samples tested is every winner of a race in Ireland this year.
In total they found 10 adverse analytic findings, none of which we are told were substances that are prohibited at all times, such as performance enhancing steroids. Coincidently the IHRB samples are also tested in a laboratory in Suffolk.
Bolger’s assertion that steroids are being used by one or more top trainers to improve the performance of their horses is at loggerheads with the IHRB data.
We therefore end up with a paradox — either there is no wide scale steroid abuse within the sport as the IHRB findings indicate or the systems for detection are not fit for purpose and cannot actually detect the steroids in the samples which forms part of Bolger’s hypothesis.
A single positive result for anabolic steroids within the IHRB findings would have gone some way towards dispelling Bolger’s theory but the IHRB found none.
It is also worth pointing out that of the 1,398 races run in Ireland in the first six months of 2021 only 71 hair samples were taken from winners. The hair test seems the most likely one to discover steroid traces in samples so why is it not the default test?
In life, as in sport, timing is everything which begs the question why has IHRB chief Denis Egan decided to announce his early retirement at this moment in time?
Egan has been the face of the Turf Club, and more recently the IHRB, for over 20 years.
He announced last week that he is to quit this key role within the industry at the end of September, coincidently the same day Brian Kavanagh exits HRI, meaning that the two top jobs of regulating horse racing in Ireland will have new personnel at the helm at the very same time.
With the Bolger allegations still unresolved it may not be the most opportune time for such fundamental change. That said, a couple of new brooms might just be what’s needed, though there is always the suspicion that any new brooms within horse racing will be of the Trigger variety — same broom just a different handle or a different head”…….
Thanks Sam. Very interesting. Interesting too that there are no comments on the blog!
More hair tests would seem to be the way to clear this up one way or another. I imagine they would cite cost as an excuse not to do this. It would be useful to know what the criteria for the 71 tests they DID carry out were. I’d like to see all horses who break legs on the flat or die of heart attacks tested. Given that side effects of steroids (at least in humans) can be blood pressure and heart problems and reduced bone density, perhaps it could be an opportunity to address 2 problems in one. Of course I am not saying that these fatalities were doped. Such incidents have sadly always happened but we have all noticed an increase recently. Maybe this is an opportunity to address 2 problems in one, even if only to eliminate one possibility.
There are always side effects to doping; cyclists who used EPO were regularly woken in the night as to have a brief, short walk, to enable the heart to pump the blood around the body, instead of thickening and causing heart attacks.
Let me get something straight:
If a cyclist dies of a heart attack the most likely cause would be doping, stereoids etc.
If a (young) racehorse dies of a heart attack, everybody is sorry, but no one, absolutely no one asks one single question. It seems to be normal for a horse to die under such circumstances.Why is that? Well, maybe because racing has something to hide and it could be well related to performance enhancing drugs.
Good point Ex-Ruby.
Also went through my mind whether Gordon Elliott sat on his dead horse was just a blase reaction? ie Are horses dying like that more frequently at his stables than other stables; hence the blase reaction.Value Is EverythingAlso look at how Cheveley exited the Elliott yard. Irish racing is now a very small space, and you can’t afford too many bad apples.
Useful link: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/committees/
I understand the points people are making about heart attacks, and would not rule out there being something in it. That said, equine and human bodies are very different machines, and we need to be cautious about comparisons. After all, how often do you see a human break their leg while running in a race? Also, by virtue of the size of the yard, there will be more instances of heart attacks at Gordon Elliott’s than at smaller establishments.
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/oireachtas-tv/video-archive/committees/
Continues on 20th July.Not been the IHRB’s best day, to be fair.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Next round 3.30pm (trainers, HRI and IHRB): https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/oireachtas-tv/cr3-live/
Kimmage responded to some of Hillyer’s comments in Sunday’s paper. To her suggestion that he ran the story of the UK trainer without the full facts, he stated some facts; these included a delay in the BHA testing samples, and the conclusion from the lab that the results were ‘different’ because of the time lapse. It was not that nothing was found (as stated emphatically at the committee meeting). He also refuted Hillyer’s comment that she hadn’t spoken to him (Kimmage) directly, as well as providing detail of a follow up call after last week’s meeting. That was pretty much it: https://www.independent.ie/sport/horse-racing/irish-horse-racing-industry-you-are-the-truth-seeker-what-if-the-truth-is-different-40639267.htmlNo love lost between Michael Grassick (CEO of the trainers association) and Jim Bolger (referred to as ”the gentleman” in the public eye by all) who apparently gave up his membership of the associatian in March (it was quoted only 9 of about 350 trainers in Ireland are not members)
The questioning of the IHRB is much better than the first part
From above – “He also refuted Hillyer’s comment that she hadn’t spoken to him (Kimmage) directly, as well as providing detail of a follow up call after last week’s meeting.“
He is saying she lied in essence, or, at best and being charitable, had an inaccurate recollection of the facts.
Cormack
I’m glad that Hillyer was tackled on her statement last week that ‘horses move, but we are able to follow them’. This sounds convincing, but is not true.
https://www.racingpost.com/news/international/bob-baffert-permitted-to-have-new-york-runners-again-as-judge-overrules-nyra-ban/500646
Mr. Baffert has been treated unfairly, apparently.This Stephen Mahon character is unbelievable. The IHRB seriously need to get this pr1ck out of their sport.
BUY THE SUN
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