- This topic has 15 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 10 months ago by
.
- Posts
Emirates rider Mubarak Khalifa bin Shafya has been stripped of his Open Endurance championship win after his horse Zakah Zahara tested positive for a banned substance.
Shafya won the competition at the European Endurance Championships in Portugal last September in a promotion, after Sultan Bin Sulayem’s horse Nashmi failed the final vet check.
The very same bin Shafya who trained Gladiatorus and Eastern Anthem to impressive successes on Dubai World Cup night.
It will be interesting to see how they fare this season away from Dubai…
From Guardian online – not sure if this is the same story or a different one!
Sheikh Mohammed, one of the biggest names in horse racing globally, has been embarrassed by a doping scandal involving a horse he has ridden in endurance races in Bahrain and Dubai. The horse, Tahhan, which the Sheikh owns, was found to have two banned substances in its system after testing by the Sheikh’s own staff.
On being told of the results, the Sheikh informed the International Equestrian Federation, which has launched an investigation. He began his own internal inquiry and has waived his right to have back-up samples tested. In the meantime his wife, Princess Haya of Jordan, who is president of the IEF, said she will defer the presidency on "all matters related to this subject".
"While completely unaware and utterly condemning the administration of these substances, His Highness has volunteered his acceptance that he is legally the person responsible," said a statement from Dubai. "He has offered the highest level of cooperation to the IEF."
"For his own satisfaction and the welfare of the horses, His Highness has instigated a widespread internal investigation into the circumstances surrounding the cases, the results of which will be shared withthe IEF."
Tahhan tested positive for guanabenz, used to treat hypertension, and a metabolite of stanozolol, an anabolic steroid. Sheikh Mohammed reportedly withdrew from a race at the weekend, in which he had already established a substantial lead, on being advised of the positive tests.
The case will be studied by an IEF tribunal which has the power to impose a suspension. Endurance racing, though unknown in Britain, is popular in the Emirates.
The news comes as the Sheikh’s string of horses, which race under the Godolphin banner, returns to Newmarket this week to be trained for the British Flat racing season. Princess Haya, who has led a campaign to eliminate doping from equestrian sports, owned last year’s Derby winner, New Approach.
Drugs are rife in racing – same as cycling, there’s drugs you can test for and drugs you can’t and certain top trainers around the world are using the latter, why would the UK and UAE be exempt from this?
Sounds like a different strand of the same story, AP…
Will we be seeing bin shafya at next year’s carnival i wonder?
And why would Britain, Irish Stamp?
Didn’t he just ask that or is it a rhetorical question?
Apologies Zorro, it was meant as a rhetorical question. I’m sure the UAE and UK aren’t exempt.
It will be interesting to see how they fare this season away from Dubai…
Interesting indeed.
It will be interesting to see how they fare this season away from Dubai…
Interesting indeed.
Are you implying then that Gladatorius has been doped up aswell then as per his poor run today?
Absolutely nothing wrong with questioning whether or not his performance was because of a potential lack of substances. It could well just be that it was because of the surroundings and the travelling, but this horse who front ran over 9f against top horses in Dubai looked beat from 4f out in a mile race at Ascot. He ran like one of O’Briens pace setters.
Ten horses tested positive to banned substances in endurance rides in the UAE since December. Although only one of them Tahhan was rdden by Sheikh Mohammed, Mubarak Bin Shafya trained two of them and five can be linked with the Maktoum family in terms of who owns them or trains them.
In FEI sports the Person Responsible is the rider, which works sensibly in eventing, dressage, show jumping etc. Because endurance riding is set up similar to horse racing, the trainer manages the horse day to day and the rider/jockey only arrives for the race and could claim he doesn’t really know what’s been given to the horse. For this reason there are often arguments by the defendants lawyers at the FEI hearings about who should be the Person Responsible though the FEI has stood firm that it must remain the rider though has brought in new regulations that would allow trainers and vets etc to be joined in the action.
The recent case of Castlebar Kadeen, trained by Bin Shafya, has just been decided upon (June). The horse tested positive to flunixin ( a fast-acting analgesic and anti inflammatory), ketoprofen ( an anti inflammatory) and naltrexone (usedin humans to manage alcohol and opiod dependence). The rider Dhahi Abdullah Khamis Al Dhahi got banned for 10 months as he is legally the person responsible, so Bin Shafya was not penalised! The FEI decision notice (which is worth reading see below) stated that Bin Shafya was asked for an explanation as to why these substances were in the horse but he could not give one.
In 2005 Sheikh Mohammed’s son Sheikh Majid was the rider of a horse Okara that tested positive to guanabenz (same substance as Sheikh Mohammed’s horse Tahhan) and they managed to move the blame to the horse’s trainer Ismail Mohammed, as Sheikh Majid was a minor. Ismail Mohammed was banned for 12 months but the Court of Arbitration for Sport reduced this to eight months.The FEI case status table can be found on this link:
http://www.fei.org/Athletes_AND_Horses/ … 202009.pdfThe link to recent decisions which include Castebar Kadeen can be found on this link:
http://www.fei.org/Athletes_AND_Horses/ … sions.aspxGuanabenz slow heart rate. This will be amotivation in endurance racing because you have to get the heart rate down before you can move on from the vet checks that happen about every 25km in an endurance race. in the early days of the sport this was achieved by good horse management and massage etc. In the desert its very easy to pop behind a sand dune about 2 km before a vet check and jab a horse. Bebabaloula, the ride of Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, tested positive to butorphanol, an opiod-related painkiller, and hydroxyl-xylazine, a sedative which can reduce heart-rate by 50 per cent.
Tahhan tested positive to guanabenz. Both Tahhan and Eo Fawati, the ride of the younger Sheikh Hamdan, tested positive to the anabolic steroid hydroxy-stanozolol. Three other horses, Lienka, Omani Iman and Skyros de Peyrols, who had other riders and are not owned or linked to the Maktoum family, tested positive to etorphine, an analgesic 1,000 times more potent than morphine. Etorphine was in Immobilon, that is not licensed for horses any more. A micro-dose can have a stimulant effect and vets used to have the antidote waiting as even a drop on your skin could kill you.So just to summarise your posting Clare.
Responsibility rests with the rider of the horse, unless the rider happens to be Sheikh Mo or one of his family, in which case blame is then shifted to the trainer.
What a cosy little system and talk about flexible interpretation of the rules.
Thanks Clare, that must be the most interesting and informative first post in TRF history. You should be awarded Classic Winner status immediately.
Such a shame its being left to the horsey publications to keep the story going, as the racing papers don’t seem to want to report it even though there several well known "cross-over" persons involved.
It was later revealed that although Sheikh Mohammed was said to have "put up his hands" about the dope tests on Tahhan which it was claimed had ben done privately, his horse HAD been positively tested in January and was already in the FEI system anyway (eg on the case status stable) and was freely available for anyone to see including his own agents even though his spokesman has blamed the FEI for not telling him direct, sooner. So did Sheikh Mo only "come clean" when he knew this was going to come out anyway? This different take on the sequence of events was well reported in Hose and Hound magazine but I have not seen it in the Racing Post.Horse and Hound story read:
Sheikh Mohammed demands answers from FEI over dope caseH&H news desk
14 May, 2009
Sheikh Mohammed has demanded to know why the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) — an organisation headed by his wife, Princess Haya — delayed notifying him of a positive dope test on his horse, Tahhan.
On 6 April, Sheikh Mohammed suspended himself from competition and began an internal investigation after his own team discovered traces of two potentially performance-enhancing drugs in Tahhan. He competed the horse in CEI2* 120km endurance races in Bahrain and Dubai in January and February this year.
But has emerged that Tahhan was also tested by the FEI during the rides. The horse’s positive results were passed to the FEI legal team on 19 March — nearly three weeks before Sheikh Mohammed’s well-publicised statement that it was he who had volunteered the results.
A spokesman for the Sheikh said: "HH Sheikh Mohammed notified the FEI on 3 April 2009.
"The FEI notification to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) federation was on 6 April, 2009. HH Sheikh Mohammed received no communication from the FEI or from any other party, prior to 6 April.
"As a result of this chronological issue being raised by the media, Sheikh Mohammed’s legal team has written to the FEI requesting clarification of why earlier notification was not made to the UAE federation, and the procedure surrounding the use of the FEI website for cases of this nature."
The progress of doping investigations are published in a "case-status stable" on its website, http://www.fei.org
An FEI spokesman said: "We introduced the table so the facts of all cases under investigation could be seen."
Tahhan is one of nine UAE endurance horses under investigation for positive dope tests — to read more, see today’s issue of Horse & Hound (14 May).
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.