Banned substances

[jinnyj]

I know full well that horses are sent over to Ireland from the UK for practices that are not allowed over here and drugs are definitely administered there for the same reason including steroids some of which have a limited detection.

We have already seen the Bob Baffert fall out. And the most visible trainer who brings two year old fillies over to run at a Royal Ascot which look like four year old colts is most definitely abusing the system. At the moment he is still ahead of the racing authorities but everyone on the backstretch will tell you that drug abuse is rife there.

And so yes I do believe that there is a lot more to this story than just a journalist stirring things up,

[barjon]

I’m with you, jinnyj. It’s like drawing teeth, but it’ll eventually come out.

[reet hard]

For what its worth, I don't think this is the smoking gun that outsiders think it is. And I think trainers have their back up immediately when Kimmage calls them. Kimmage is able to write it as he sees fit. If it is intimating that there is a systemic issue with doping in Irish racing, needs a lot more than what has been revealed to date.

Read through the RP intervews and broadly agree with HW's sentiments on this. Result of journalitic licence and overkill by IHRA (apparently took samples from a chilld's pony , for chris'sake) or so it would seem?

[HawkWing]

Read through the RP intervews and broadly agree with HW's sentiments on this. Result of journalitic licence and overkill by IHRA (apparently took samples from a chilld's pony , for chris'sake) or so it would seem?

If there are questions to answer, let them be answered. But the piece is pandering to those who aren't aware that horses can legally take steroids in the US that are banned here. There is a lot of pearl clutching from some media quarters jealous of the prominence of racing in Irish society, and some of the taller poppies out there.

I'd be surprised if a sophisticated systemic doping operation was being run out of a hired yard in Monasterevan, but let's see where it goes. When Bolger claims it wasn't a level playing field, its hardly Noel Kelly and Enda Bolger that he had in mind as having their thumb on the scale.

Leave Kimmage and Walsh do what they want and uncover what they uncover. If there is a case to answer, great, but I do think that the trainers were straight in the Kimmage piece. Three/four years ago, Kimmage's focus was on rugby and here we are. He doesn't always land.

[Colin Phillips]

Nice post, Hawk Wing.

[jinnyj]

I am just basing my opinion on what I know about a vet down here who regularly sends horses over to Ireland for treatment that is illegal here in the UK.

I do do not know if this yard is in anyway connected. I do not know if any of these trainers would be involved in such practices. BUT I have worked in the racing industry for a very long time and know that a great many individuals that are possibly revered are not whiter than white. I could relate horror stories of things I have witnessed in yards both towards horses and staff.

[barjon]

And I think that first hand knowledge of jinnj’s is worth more than any newspaper article - as was G-G’s comments about the Skelton operation https://www.talkinghorses.co.uk/foru...l=1#post761365 and https://www.talkinghorses.co.uk/foru...l=1#post761369

[Colin Phillips]

Jinny, are you saving them to write a book? let me know when it is being published, sounds like my sort of read.

[HawkWing]

I am just basing my opinion on what I know about a vet down here who regularly sends horses over to Ireland for treatment that is illegal here in the UK.

I do do not know if this yard is in anyway connected. I do not know if any of these trainers would be involved in such practices. BUT I have worked in the racing industry for a very long time and know that a great many individuals that are possibly revered are not whiter than white. I could relate horror stories of things I have witnessed in yards both towards horses and staff.

I can completely understand why you wouldn't bother but if you were to email Paul Kimmage, you wouldn't be waiting long for a call back. I'm sure that he would (as would most) feel that you are doing the sport a service.

As it stands, I believe all Irish trainers who do not dope, however few that is, have been damaged by Bolger. I think Bolger has a responsibility to say his piece rather than besmirch all trainers with innuendo. If Bolger is frightened to say what he claims to know publicly, it suggests the information isn't as ironclad as he suggests. That he refuses to disclose to an Oireachtas committee, or any area where you are exempt from libel, is cowardly.

Yet he is held up as a whisteblowing martyr by those who are hoping there is a huge scandal and trainers like Noel Kelly (20 winners since 2012) are having to answer why his horsebox was seen entering a yard in Monasterevan.

[Desert Orchid]

Q: So what you’re saying is; after they’ve had a run, to get them to recover better, if you give them a mode of cocktail then, you’ll have the best chance that they’ll recover relatively quickly and be able to go again?

A: Yeah, for instance, in the States, if the horse has a proper hard day, you know as soon as they walk into the stable the head lad will be there giving them a shot.

Q: A shot of what?

A: Well, a muscle calming agent. He’s certainly not going to run in the next five or six days so [the trainer’s] not going to give a ****. And the next morning the horse wants his breakfast.

Q: So what you’re saying is this is a technically illegal substance that they can’t test positive for?

A: No, that substance [will] not pass a dope test. It’s six days before you can present [the horse] for a dope test. But in America they licence so many products that relate to the physical aspect where in Britain and Ireland some of these products are not licenced. I’m not saying there aren’t surgeons out there that wouldn’t use them when their patient was in dire need . . . because I know there is (laughs). And I don’t see anything wrong with that.

Didn't Francois Boutin admit to doping his horses AFTER a hard race so that a) they recovered quicker and b) didn't remember the physical pain of the race, thereby enabling them to hold their top form for longer?

I'm pretty sure I heard a rumour about a prominent UK trainer two or three decades ago who did something similar, at least for a time, but my memory is just a bit fuzzy on that one.

(Must be the cocktail I had last night...)

[littlelad]

If anyone could post David Walshs piece from yesterday I would really appreciate it.

Sent from my SM-J415FN using Tapatalk

[HawkWing]

he coincidence was beyond unexpected. On Tuesday a report into alleged doping in Irish horse racing by a joint committee of the Oireachtas was released in Dublin. Four months before, members of the committee had heard evidence from leading figures in the sport and although their report highlighted new measures that should be implemented, the overall conclusion was that the sport’s regulatory authority, the Irish Horse Racing Board (IHRB), was doing a good job.

Jackie Cahill, chairman of the joint committee, delivered the soundbite that would become the headline. “We’re happy that the testing standards in Irish racing are of the highest possible international standards,” he said.
The 34-page report had come about because the leading trainer Jim Bolger had said doping was “the No 1 problem in Irish racing”. Cahill’s report, said a journalist from the Racing Post, had “effectively invalidated” Bolger’s allegations.
At the same time that the report was released, a team of Department of Agriculture, Food and Marine (DAFM) investigators, supported by local gardai officers, turned up at a Leinster stud. Acting on intelligence, the investigators were looking for a British resident.
The wanted individual, who cannot be named for legal reasons, describes himself as an equine physical consultant and works with both thoroughbreds and other sports horses. He also describes himself as a “vet-physio”, although he is not qualified in veterinary science. Department of Agriculture officials knew that he held a clinic at the stud every second week, which was popular with racehorse trainers and those involved in equestrian sport. He had a reputation — for the word was that he was good with horses that had physical problems.
The investigators arrived at the stud at about 10am and told the man that they had come to carry out a search of the house and yard. They would end up taking away his computer and mobile phone, in addition to a number of pharmaceutical substances.
Intelligence had been provided to the authorities by someone who had, over a number of weeks, monitored the flow of equine traffic to the clinic. From the names on the horse boxes and the amount of traffic in and out of the stud, it was clear that many believed in the man’s methods.


According to the source, more than 60 different horse boxes had visited over the course of a few weeks. They came from as far away as Northern Ireland.
The trainer Liam Burke had come from Mallow in County Cork on Tuesday morning. It was, he told me, just his bad luck to have to call into the stud at the wrong time.
“I was on my way to Fairyhouse to run a horse and was dropping off a horse to the stud for a friend of mine, who’s a handler,” he said.
“I was only doing a favour for a friend and I was just unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I was never in that yard until the other day. That vet has never treated any of my horses, at least not in recent times.
“I got there at 12.20, people had been there for an hour at that stage. I just drove in and they held me there. The Turf Club vet [Dr Lynn Hillyer] was there and she wouldn’t allow me to run my horse at Fairyhouse. I was just being a good Samaritan and that’s what happened.”
Ted Walsh was the other trainer who turned up with a horse to be treated. “I went down to get a horse scanned and lasered,” he said. “I got Seabass done ten years ago, [but] I wouldn’t go to him too often, maybe once in a blue moon.
“I drove in past the first yard, into the second yard and everybody was standing around his car. A garda came up to me whom I knew and he said to me, ‘I have to ask you your name.’ I said, ‘Grand, what’s wrong?’ He said they were investigating if there was contraband in the place, unlicensed drugs or remedies.
“I was there for a couple of hours. After an hour I asked if I could go. They said no, so I went back and waited in the horse box. Lynn Hillyer said she wanted to blood-test all the horses and she then took four samples of blood and a hair sample from my horse.
“After doing that she said, ‘You can go home now Ted,’ and I drove off, three hours after I’d turned up.”
As well as local intelligence, it is believed that the FBI had tipped off Irish authorities about a consignment of veterinary products en route to Dublin airport and this information led to Tuesday morning’s raid in Leinster.
Afterwards the Department of Agriculture issued a statement in which it spoke of “an operation led by DAFM and the gardai with IHRB officers in attendance, which led to a seizure of animal remedies”.
The question is, precisely what kind of animal remedies? One source has told me that there is a belief within the investigation that when the products taken from the yard are analysed, the story will only become bigger.
For Irish horse racing, the stakes are high. If the DAFM investigation results in charges, Bolger’s belief that there is a doping culture within the sport becomes ever more difficult to ignore.

As for Cahill, and the report that speaks of the “highest possible international standards” of drug-testing — well, they could have picked a better day to release that.

[Diamond Geezer]

The British "wanted individual" was named by Nick Luck in Luck On Sunday but I won't do so here. Noel Meade was interviewed and said a lot of Irish trainers, including himself, were very annoyed with Jim Bolger who had cast stones without providing any evidence to back up his claims.

[archie]

Kevin Blake with his take:
https://www.attheraces.com/blogs/kev...n-warwick-raid

[HawkWing]

https://www.rte.ie/sport/racing/2021...-been-damaged/

[Grey]

Drop the paranoia, Ruby. Not every member of the public is an idiot out to get you. There is an issue here that has to be dealt with openly and objectively.

[edgt]

There could be an interesting twist to this already twisted story in the offing.
Paranoia or not time will tell.

[HawkWing]

Personally, I think we are living through MC Pipe part two. Jessie Harrington better be dirty as hell, given the smoke that has circulated around her since Bolger 'whistleblew'. She has defended herself as being clean a bit too vocally. If she is clean, Bolger owes her an apology. There is an attitude across several Irish media outlets that like to vaunt Kimmage as being some sort of "all the presidents men" type dogged character who will uncover the wrongdoing through good old-fashioned investigative journalism. He failed with his rugby crusade, and I think he needs to do better if he is to uncover the type of wrong-doing Bolger and him suspect.

I personally think that the raid on Warwick was done to coincide with the IHRB positive report on drug-use, and it didn't land the big fish that they were hoping it would. The closest association was the yard being owned by the head lad - who it turns out owned it for a year - and Warwick had conducted his business there for decades. The pieces fluff up their own feathers without uncovering anything really. It does give support to those who are jealous of the success of Willie, Henry, Gordon who are at the time of writing, been no where near the scandal. Bolger has a lot to answer for.

[LUKE]

Kimmage needs to find another Lance Armstrong to stay relevant -an angry man with a serious chip on his shoulder.

[HawkWing]

https://twitter.com/RebelDevil71/sta...155408903?s=20