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Was this common knowledge as I don’t remember hearing about this before?
Apparently ‘neither Elliott or the BHA were able to pinpoint the source of the substance with BHA legal counsel Charlotte Davison listing it as “a mystery case”.
That statement in of itself should be very worrying.
Well isn’t this routine? How many trainers a year have a runner that fails a drugs test. Cobalt Cotter still has a licence after all.
Speaking after the hearing, Elliott said: “I’m grateful to the panel for making a finding of low culpability. That was important to me. It shows that I had taken reasonable precautions. That said, the buck stops with me and I fully support the rules on anti-doping.”
Of course, Gordon. I believe every single word.
It only happened at the Festival in a prestigious Championship Race, but the trainer involved was fully cooperative, so why not let him get away with it?
This is how you draw the interest of the general public in a way you didn’t want to. Though I doubt this kind of a case will ever make the tabloids.
“Though I doubt this kind of a case will ever make the tabloids.”
There was a report in “Daily Mail” yesterday.
The one person that couldn’t really afford any more bad press……outside of racing’s bubble if (and it is a big if…which actually goes in his favour) he will be known for anything it will likely be as that bloke that sat on a dead horse whilst taking a call on his mobile and now for drugging a horse rather than the horses he has trained to win most of the top prizes in the sport.
I don’t quite understand the outcome of this case:
Was he guilty? If yes, what is the REAL punishment?
Horse gets disqualified – quite obvious
Prize-money has to be paid back – quite obvious too
Trainer gets fined 1k though it’s “a mystery case” after all“Zanahiyr was found to have traces of a metabolite of lidocaine, a local anaesthetic, in his system although neither Elliott or the BHA were able to pinpoint the source of the substance, with BHA legal counsel Charlotte Davison listing it as “a mystery case”.”
Now his representative has this to say:
“Rory Mac Neice, representing Elliott, said the racecourse stables at Cheltenham were “overwhelmingly the most likely place” Zanahiyr came into contact with lidocaine and that the trainer had taken reasonable steps to ensure cross contamination would not occur.”Was Zanahiyr the only horse tested positive? If yes, how come the stables at Cheltenham were OVERWHELMINGLY the most likely place where he came into contact with the substance?
Has someone a more logical interpretation? I mean if he isn’t 100% percent guilty, then let him go. But if he is, then punish him properly and stop using the word mystery when talking about steroids in horse racing or any other sports.
Of all the things I might criticise Gordon Elliott for – once using a deceased racehorse as a sofa being but one of them – this offence seems fairly low on the list.
Maybe I’m missing something (it’s been known)?
Was this a substantial amount of a manifest performance-enhancing or performance-debilitating substance?
Did it make a material difference to the outcome of the race?
Zanahiyr could have a bucket of it in his system and would still be jumping the last as Nico De Boinville weighed in this March.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"This is a drug with a legitimate therapeutic use. But from a welfare perspective horses shouldn’t be running on an anaesthetic.
Perioperative lidocaine treatment is commonly used in horses that undergo surgical treatment of colic, to prevent or treat postoperative ileus and reduce the effects of intestinal ischaemia-reperfusion injury.
Here is the relevant rule:
The Disciplinary Panel shall impose a penalty on the Responsible Person for a breach of Rule (K)2 unless the Responsible Person establishes:
the precise route as to how the Prohibited Substance entered their horse’s body; and
that they had taken all reasonable precautions to avoid violating Rule (K)2.
As Elliot couldn’t establish a source he had a to get a penalty. But as others have said, I’m not sure it was helpful for the BHA lawyer to describe this case as a “mystery”. It’s a convenient excuse to blame racecourses. But who’s to say it wasn’t given to the horse on the sly? Will be good to read the written reasons.
The source being the racecourse is an obvious and easy place to point the finger of blame at and yet it would appear only one horse at the entire festival (let alone the large number of horses Elliott himself took over there) has subsequently tested positive (yes I know many may not have even been required/needed to be tested) but if it was overwhelmingly the most likely place I find it overwhelmingly difficult to believe that only one horse was affected.
I wonder exactly what evidence Elliott supplied to the hearing to show that he had taken reasonable precautions to stop this from happening?
On the BHA official list of drugs and how long you need to wait before running them, Lidocaine is expected to be out of the system in 72 hours. And since those published figures are designed to ensure every trace is gone, it’s probably that 48 hours would be enough – the BHA include a margin of error.
Given that the horse was probably in Cheltenham by Sunday for his race on Tuesday, you can see why the racecourse stables is viewed as the likely source of the lidocaine.
The details of the hearing have yet to be published, so we don’t know the amount they found.
It would be hard to argue accidental contamination at Cheltenham stables what with how many horses would have been there and only one horse seemingly caught up in it and there are always exceptions to rules so the BHA saying expected to be out of the system in 72hrs might be correct for the majority but there are always cases that fall outside of expected timeframes.
Who knows whether Elliott is fully aware of everything his staff are doing at a busy time like the run up and travelling over to Cheltenham – there is a certain level of trust involved as he can’t personally be there every minute overseeing things and it is not like there aren’t cases where it eventually came out that staff have been involved in things trainers haven’t been aware of or have been purposely kept from knowing.
Yes the buck stops with him but given the lack of evidence I am not sure they had the scope to punish him much more than they did. All very unsatisfactory though and the worry is that with not knowing how it happened, whats to stop it from happen again in the future but maybe with more serious consequences.
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