A raid led by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM) led to substances that are banned for use in racehorses being seized in Monasterevin, County Kildare on Tuesday.
The premises are understood to be the location from where a well-known British-based equine therapist operates, and there were horses in training present on the site during the raid.
It is understood the individual concerned is not a veterinary practitioner, but is someone who specialises in tendon and muscle problems and is commonly used by trainers across the spectrum in both Ireland and Britain. They have in the past been credited for getting some star horses back on track following leg problems.
The person involved, who did not want to comment when contacted yesterday, has also been used by high-profile participants in other equine disciplines and is a practitioner who has been operating on horses in Ireland and Britain for around 30 years . . .
The raid was led by DAFM, which, it is understood, had four officials there, along with three gardaí. During the inspection the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board was contacted and invited to attend, and a four-strong delegation led by chief veterinary officer Dr Lynn Hillyer subsequently arrived.
It is understood two licenced trainers were on the premises, both of whom arrived after the department and gardaí, but before the IHRB. On arrival, the IHRB, which has jurisdiction over unlicensed premises since gaining authorised officer status last summer, then elected to take hair and blood samples from both of those trainers’ horses . . .
It is understood they were both there with horses with tendon issues and believe themselves to be inadvertently caught up in the situation and innocent of any wrongdoing.
The therapist was questioned at the site and their phone and vehicle were seized along with unlicensed remedies, before they were then taken to their Irish place of residence. The raid is believed to have come about based on intelligence following a tip off.
Racing Post,
Thursday, November 11
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I’m sitting in a room listening to a conversation recorded seven months ago, between John Warwick, the above-named “therapist”, talking to a man who won’t be named. They are discussing a subject that nobody wants to talk about.
The man who won’t be named has believed for some time that the use of performance enhancing drugs is endemic in Irish racing.
Warwick is the man questioned by gardaí on Tuesday at Ballintogher Stud near Monasterevin. He told the Racing Post late last night that he has “certainly contravened the rules”, but that “there is nothing [in the substances seized] that would fail a dope test.” Here’s how the telephone conversation started.
Q: Are you based in Ireland or do you work in the UK?
A: I was in Ireland for many years courtesy of Coolmore . . . It’s a long story . . . I do a lot of work in Ireland, I’m actually based in Scotland. I have a house in Scotland. But I moved to Ireland 20-odd years ago, and recently came back to Scotland.
Q: Why did you come back?
A: Well, it’s something to do with me being in my mid-70s (laughs). I still have a house in Ireland, but now I just have a clinic every couple of weeks, a two or three-day clinic and it’s just unbelievable.
Q: What do you mean?
A: Unbelievably busy. The last time . . . I had the first patient at 9:30am and we had a horse every 35 to 40 minutes until 7pm without a break. We never stopped.
Q: Is this just one yard?
A: That is the clinic . . . but for attendant treatments they’re resident.
Q: What do you mean? When they’re staying with you for a few days?
A: Yes, 10 days. Tendons need to be . . . well, the way we do the tendon treatment.
Q: So these horses basically have tendon injuries that you’re treating? Tendon strains?
A: All things physical, that’s what we do. I don’t do any surgery. Everything we do is physical. We don’t use . . . well, for instance, I know one of the most popular drugs on the market is Dormosedan (laughs).
Q: What is that?
A: It’s what they tend to dope them with to carry out an examination . . . We don’t use it, because if a horse is slightly sedated how are you going to find a physical problem? We do our work through biomechanics . . . muscle in motion. I could keep going but it’s boring.
Q: Do you still work with Coolmore?
A: I still do some work with Coolmore. I do a lot of yearling work. We’ll see the yearlings shortly after weaning and they’ll be introduced to me again if there’s a problem on prep, or on the way through prep, then I’ll be called in. I’m usually there every second week from April.
Q: Why then?
A: Well, the foals have been weaned and they are then scrutinised in their action.
Here’s when it got interesting:
Q: So what you’re saying is that quite a lot of these horses that would go lame behind, or lose their action, or [suffer] intermittent lameness . . . that there’s a different issue involved that’s often missed or misdiagnosed. A muscular thing?
A: Absolutely.
Q: How do you sort that though? How do you turn that around without just giving them a lot of rest?
A: First you’ve got to identify the problem, eliminate the discomfort, so that the muscle can be used by the patient. Then you’ve controlled exercise so [the muscle] is not overused until you have achieved restimulation through work. You can make it pain free, that’s easy — although I hate steroids and don’t use them — but you can make it pain free, (and then) you’re moving the exercise rate up as the repair takes place.
Q: But can you give them something to make this better? Or is it just diagnosing the problem and changing the exercise regime.
A: The first thing is to get the diagnostics right, and once you’ve got that right . . . I mean . . . I have my own way of dealing with it. We’ll work a horse up the yard and have the trainer or owner looking at it and [I’ll say]: ‘Look at the swing motion? See how he’s slightly out?’ Then I’ll go ahead and take the horse to a stable and do what I’ve got to do. I’ll bring him out and literally 10 minutes after he’s come out [I’ll say] ‘Have a look at him now.’
Q: And they can see the difference?
A: It’s, ‘My God!’
Q: So when you say ‘You do what you have to do?’ What do mean? How do you actually physically make an impact on this horse so quickly?
A: [Laughs] We put a product in there that lowers the neuroblasts.
Q: That lowers the neuroblasts?
A: Yeah.
Q: So what’s that?
A: Well, that’s another story.
Q: What do you mean? How did you discover that?
A: [Laughs]
Q: It sounds like a Nobel Prize winning thing? What is it?
A: No, it’s not rocket science. I spent quite a lot of time in the [United] States when I was a little bit younger, and I learned a lot of things there which are not really used here. They have products that we don’t have, can’t have, are not supposed to have, whatever you want to call it. But I like horses, and if I can help them I will. You know? And there is a product that can help you in that respect.
Q: But is it legal? Or are you saying that it’s not a licenced product? That it’s not legal in the UK?
A: It’s totally legal and passes all dope tests. Whether it’s legal to use it in the UK is another story, but it’s not illegal to have and it doesn’t fail any dope tests.
Q: But it’s stood the test of time and you’ve used it for quite a while?
A: A long time.
Here’s what happened next . . .
* * * * *
Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the 12, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him: “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them: “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
John 20:24-29
The man who won’t be named has always been a ‘Thomas’ by nature, and there was a lot about his conversation that left him scratching his head. John Warwick talked forever but seemed averse to publicity: “Horses come in [to the clinic] but we do not publish their names. That’s between the owner, trainer and the clinic.”
He had no letters attached to his name, or obvious qualification, but had taught at the University of Nottingham, worked with academics in Edinburgh, and set-up a postgraduate course for veterinary surgeons at the University of Liverpool . . . despite being “never interested” in surgery.”
But it was the language he used about medication that puzzled him most. Back to the phonecall.
Q: What other stuff do you use? Is it just one thing?
A: The neuroblast control is not one product — it’s a special little cocktail. What are you going to use on say . . . post-race discomfort, which loses you maybe 10 days before he’s trainable again. Give them a shot of Buscopan or something? It’s not good enough, is it? So there’s ways around all that.
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.
Q: Do you think [Irish trainers] are giving pharmacological help as well?
A: (laughs) That’s not for me to say.
Q: Do you speculate that they might?
A: I don’t know . . . I’ll say one thing. What I did discover in Ireland quite early on . . . there isn’t a single yard that I’ve ever been on in 30 years that doesn’t have a head lad or someone that isn’t good with a needle. They don’t need to phone the vet to give the horse an IV.
The man who won’t be named made another phonecall. He hired a private investigator. A few months later, he received a dossier in the post. Ballintogher Stud, a five-minute drive from Monasterevin, was owned by Ballintogher Stud Limited, a limited liability company incorporated in the state of Maryland, USA. The directors of Ballintogher Stud are listed as Stephanie Ocsko-Moore, a 42-year-old Canadian and her partner, Thomas Joseph Comerford, a 47-year-old Head Lad with Aidan O’Brien.
Fifty-six horse boxes had visited the clinic that summer:
Date 15/6/21: Horseboxes 13 (Unbranded 13, Branded 0)
Date 29/6/21: Horseboxes 10 (Unbranded 7, Branded - Peter Fahey, Noel C Kelly)
Date 13/7/21: Horseboxes 12 (Unbranded 12, Branded 0)
Date 27/7/21: Horseboxes 10, (Unbranded 10, Branded 0)
Date 31/8/21: Horseboxes 11 (Unbranded 8, Branded 2 - Jessica Harrington, Enda Bolger)
The man who won’t be named sent everything to the authorities.
* * * * *
Ted Walsh has known John Warwick for 25 years. “He’s very good with tendons,” he says. “He has a laser machine there and knows how to work well, so if you have a slight tendon tear, and the vet says ‘give it eight months and it will be fine’ he might get you back on the track in four.”
It was a tendon problem that brought Walsh to Ballintogher on Tuesday. “I went down to get a horse scanned (for a tendon problem),” he says. “I rang him at 11 o’clock and said, ‘Where are you?’ He said: ‘I’m down in the clinic.’ I said: ‘I have a horse here will you have a look at him?’ He said: ‘I will. Come on down.’
“I arrived at maybe 11.30, 11.40. . . . I drove into the yard and there were a couple of boxes there I didn’t know. He was standing by his car with a whole lot of fellows with masks on around him and a guard came down to me. He said: ‘I know who you are but I have to ask your name.’ I said: ‘Grand. Ted Walsh’ and he says: ‘What are you here for?’ I said: ‘I’m here to get a tendon scanned and to see the prognosis.’ So he says: ‘Fine. Will you stay in the box until I come back to you.’ So I was there for about three-quarters of an hour and nothing happened. So I got out and [John Warwick] was still up at the car and I asked one of the men, ‘Can I go?’
“He said: “Nobody can go until we say so. This place is under warranty. We’re searching for . . .’ what he called contraband, but I’m sure it was unlicensed remedies is what I heard after. So I went back to the car and Liam Burke [a trainer from Mallow] arrived while I was there, and somebody else I didn’t know.
“Then Lynn Hillyer [of the IHRB] arrived and said she wanted to test all the horses before anyone left. I said ‘grand’ and waited my turn, and I took the horse out of the box and she took four samples of blood off him, and took a hair sample. Then she says: ‘You can go now, Ted.’ I said: ‘Thanks, Lynn’.”
Things were a bit more complicated for Burke, who had a horse — Samos Island — running at Fairyhouse that afternoon stood down by the stewards.
“Well, basically I was being a good Samaritan,” he says. “I am not a client of [Warwick]. He doesn’t treat any of my horses. I was asked by a friend to drop a horse off there on my way to Fairyhouse, which I duly did, and the Department of Agriculture were there.
“Lynn Hillyer was there and wouldn’t allow the horse run because I’d driven in to a restricted premises, or whatever you want to call it, so I was just a victim of circumstance on the day.”
On Friday, we called the four trainers whose branded horseboxes were photographed at the clinic during the summer.
* * * * *
Jessica Harrington trains at Moone in Co Kildare.
“I’m writing a piece about John Warwick for Sunday.”
“Yes.”
“I believe you’ve known and been using him for a long time?”
“I’ve used him to do my horses’ tendons. He’s good at doing tendons. And that’s all I’ve used him for.”
“Are you still using him?”
“I had a horse there the other day. Yes, I am still using him. And that does not involve any drugs — it’s a laser, a much more unintrusive form of treating tendons.”
“I’m sure you know about the raid and what was found?”
“I know about the raid, but when you do a tendon operation on a horse it’s nothing to do with drugs.”
“But they found drugs in the raid?”
“That has nothing to do with what my horse was having done to it. I just don’t like this attitude — if there’s drugs there they must have been used. The horses that I sent there went down to have the laser treatment, which takes literally about two minutes. The horse is then hosed and walked for two days and then they come back to me.”
“I accept that, but it’s not too long ago that you were questioning Jim Bolger about bringing up the issue of drugs in Irish racing, and here we have a raid where a load of unlicensed drugs have been found?”
“I was away when this happened. I haven’t talked to anyone about it. As far as I’m concerned [Warwick] has dealt with my horses for tendon injuries. And that’s it. And that does not involve drugs.”
* * * * *
Enda Bolger trains at Bruree in Co Limerick.
“I’m writing a piece about John Warwick.”
“Oh, right, yes.”
“What do you know about him?”
“He used to do work down in Limerick years ago but I don’t think he has any letters after his name or anything . . . Everything was done with his hands when we used to use him . . . I’d say it was 20 years ago.”
“You haven’t used him since?”
“Oh Jesus! He’s out of our system a long time.”
“I’m just looking at a photo here of your horsebox in his yard.”
“Of my horsebox?”
“Yeah, a couple of months ago.”
“Oh for f**k’s sake!”
“August 31.”
“It was probably one of the girls that work for me. She must have had an event horse or something like that. But I definitely don’t use him for the racehorses.”
“So it was one of the girls?”
“I’d say so, yeah.”
“You don’t know anything about it?”
“I don’t know anything about it.”
* * * * *
Noel C Kelly trains at Draperstown in Co Derry.
“I’m writing a piece about John Warwick.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you know him?”
“Jesus, I wouldn’t know much about him.”
“Do you use him?”
“No.”
“You’ve never used him?”
“No, no.”
“I’m looking at a photograph of your horsebox in his yard in June?”
“What yard?”
“The one that was raided the other day?”
“No, I never heard tell of it.”
“So you don’t know what your horsebox was doing there?”
“Jeeze I don’t know nothing about that.”
*****
Peter Fahey trains at Monasterevin in Co Kildare.
“I’m writing a piece about John Warwick.”
“Oh yeah.”
“Do you know him?”
“I don’t. to be honest.”
“You’ve never used him?”
“I’ve no comment.”
“You’ve no comment?”
“No, I don’t know anything about him.”
“So you’ve never used him?”
“No.”
“I’ve a photograph here of your horsebox driving into his clinic.”
“You’ve what?”
“I’m looking at a photograph of one of your horseboxes driving into his clinic.”
“My horsebox?”
“Yeah. June 29.”
“Send it on to me, will yeh?”
“You don’t know anything about it?”
“Just send it on to me and I’ll know who was driving it.”
I send him a copy of the photo.
He doesn’t reply.
* * * * *
We also placed a call to Aidan O’Brien.
“I’m writing a piece on John Warwick. He says he worked for you?”
“Listen, between you and I . . .”
“No, we’re on the record Aidan. He says he worked for you.”
“He worked for Jim Ryan, an owner that we had.”
“So he didn’t work for you?”
“He definitely didn’t work for me.”
“He says he still works for Coolmore?”
“Listen, that’s the first I’ve heard of that. I wouldn’t know anything about him working for Coolmore.”
“The raid took place at Ballintogher Stud. A director of Ballintogher Stud is TJ Comerford, your Head Lad.”
“That’s the first I’ve heard of that.”
“That’s where they found the banned products . . . For two years now it’s been owned by TJ Comerford and a lady called Stephanie Ocsko-Moore.”
“Yeah . . . that’s TJ’s girlfriend. They had a baby recently.”
“You didn’t know that was the yard they did the raid?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Do you have a number for TJ?”
“I do, of course.”
“Would you mind texting it to me please?”
* * * * *
TJ Comerford was expecting my call. “I know what you’re ringing me for,” he says.
“Okay, go on.”
“Well, you ask the questions.”
“You’re a director of Ballintogher Stud?”
“Myself and Stephanie bought it, I suppose, two years ago. We didn’t know what we were going to do with it but at the time we bought it [Warwick] was working out of here, so we kept it the same . . . I don’t know how long he has been coming here. I don’t deal with him. He pays for the use of the place. He treats horses here. People come every Tuesday and Wednesday.”
“Were you there on Tuesday?”
“No, I was working.”
“How do you feel about the raid?”
“I don’t know what’s happened. What has he done? I don’t know if he’s done anything wrong. I personally have no say in what he does or doesn’t do. It’s not my business.”
“And no one has spoken to you about it?”
“No.”
