Michael Dickinson Gave His Horses Steroids

Yes, very sad indeed. I suppose there may be an element of if you can`t beat them join them in this - something of course that most European trainers seem to do when they take their animals over for the Breeders Cup. Just another illustration for me of what a hero Andre Fabre is. A true role model for every trainer.
 
Originally posted by Gareth Flynn@May 10 2008, 03:37 PM
You mean, was he using them in the UK?
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If he was it never seemed to do them any harm as they came back sound and ultra-consistent year after year.

Question is, WTF did Pipe The Slayer and his flat counterpart Always Lying do to theirs.
 
I don't believe that Dickinson (in the UK), Pipe or Johnston ever gave steroids to their charges, except possibly for medicinal purposes, say, to kick start a horse getting over a viral infection.

One of the most noticeable features of the Pipe horses when he started to be successful was their flab-free fitness, which contrasted strikingly to the often porcine appearance of many of their rivals.

Steroids put on bulk, not reduce it.

Steroids are of use to "power athletes", such as sprinters, certainly not long distance performers.
 
When Aidan O'Brien trained jumpers first, people were amazed at how he ran them for six weeks in a row and they kept winning. I believe it was the start of widescale use of electrolytes post race in Ireland. Some trainers are just ahead of their time and some try to stay up with the pack by cheating. Dickinson may have been both in different countries!
 
Steroid use is legal in some States in the US - it isn't here and I would very much doubt M D ever transgressed the Rules here.

Wasn't BIG BROWN apparently given steroids routinely ?
 
Do we not have a 6 month break between October and around April of a horses 2 and 3yo career?

No out of competition drugs testing in racing either. Not saying it happens but it could do if someone fancied it.
 
Wasn't there a surprise "dawn raid" on Nicholls and Pipe (and a couple of other trainers as well) a few years ago, when all the horses in the yard were tested? All were negative.
 
Was that a different occasion to the one where agents of teh BHB/Jockey club allegedly contacted a couple of high-profile trainers saying they knew what they were up to and would be keeping an eye on them?
 
Originally posted by Irish Stamp@May 11 2008, 08:21 AM

No out of competition drugs testing in racing either.
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You need to do more research on that, I wouldn't be so sure you know what your on about!

Venusian is correct, Pipe and Nicholls were the first to be tested, and it has carried on out of the public eye. JC security (or whatever they're called nowadays) test at least a couple of yard very month but nothing is ever said. They came to our yard one morning, and tested every horse, even those who were retired but still on the yard.
 
Thanks LE. With a sport thats continually blighted by negative publicity you'd hope the HRA would make more of an effort to ensure such investigations and procedures are in the public eye.
 
Originally posted by Venusian@May 11 2008, 08:30 AM
Wasn't there a surprise "dawn raid" on Nicholls and Pipe (and a couple of other trainers as well) a few years ago, when all the horses in the yard were tested? All were negative.
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A good friend of mine was Assistant to Pipe for 8 years and is adamant that that no iffy stuff ever went on with drugs there. Later on he ran the top yard single-handed for quite a while - Pipe rarely ever went up there - and would have known if any of those horse especially were being drugged.

Both Pipe and Nicholls get/got their horses supremely fit, and have top-class testing and monitoring regimes as well as researching the most up--to-date feeling regimes and supplements etc. As does Mark Johnston, himself a trained vet. You may not like what they do, but that doesn't mean they are dishonest or corrupt.
 
Wasn't Pipe's secret "blood doping" - at least I remember this being put forward as a reason for his phenomenal success at the time?

Also, training horses up a hill was one of his tricks, and is now used by Pipe and Twiston-Davies among others. I guess it is simple common sense - if you train a horse up a stiff hill he will get fitter a lot quicker than a horse trained on a flat gallop.

Interval training was "invented" by Tom Dreaper - and it put him streets ahead of the competition. I am not so sure he ever came in for accusations of cheating though.

People at the top will always get accused of cheating, usually by people who are envious - I can never forget the shameful participation by amonst others Jenny Pitman and Ginger McCain in the Roger Whatshisface TV stitch up of Pipe.
 
The Dickinsons, Gandolfo and Morley were all done for using them here 25 or so years ago.
 
Originally posted by numbersix@May 12 2008, 12:01 PM
Wasn't Pipe's secret "blood doping" - at least I remember this being put forward as a reason for his phenomenal success at the time?

Also, training horses up a hill was one of his tricks, and is now used by Pipe and Twiston-Davies among others.
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Yes; this 'stiff hill galloping' is a regime particularly used by Nicholls of course, also Nicky H and other successful NH trainers these days, but supreme fitness was the main Pipe weapon.

The trick doesn't necessarily work for flat horses though - look how comparatively poorly Meehan had done since he moved to Manton - which was predicted by a chum Les whose uncle laid down the gallops there. He is adamant they are too stiff for 2 yr olds - they were put in for Derby horses [and he says the place is colder in spring than Barbury Castle :rolleyes: ]

As I understand it, Pipe had a system of blood changing, presumably it re-oxygenates the blood. People assumed that he was therefore 'adding something' to the blood ie doping it, but he wasn't, or not in the sense they thought; and attempts to prove people's suspicions have always consequently failed
 
Extracting blood from an athlete, storing it and reintroducing it at an appropriate time before a race is also known as blood doping, even if nothing has been added to it. A healthy body will have naturally replaced the extracted blood and re-injecting it therefore increases the red blood cell count and improves an athlete's endurance. Lasse Viren is known to have done it.

Another form of blood doping is the injection of compatible blood from another source, and the third form is the injection of EPO, which stimulates the growth of blood cells.
 
I know blood doping is illegal in human athletes, is it the same in racing ? I assume the answer is 'yes' but just checking.
 
I remember asking about 'blood-doping' in horses several years ago on another message-board, and the answer I got was that because of the volume of blood involved when dealing with a horse that the practice wouldn't be practicable, ............I think,...it was several years ago when Martin was in his pomp!!
 
I looked after a horse that was fetured in teh roger cook program(but not for doping) - and at the time, my best friend was one of the "assistants" (there are a lot of them!) at Sunnyside.(before Sunnyside was filled with the not so good,recuperating and retired ones like it is these days) .Apart from not being allowed to start before 10am on a Sunday,and no unarranged visitors ( I was never allowed on to help her - no other yards she (or I!) have worked on had a problem!) there was nothing at all to even suggest anythng dodgey.

It was the blood doping Id heard about too - more red blood cells= more oxygen circulating=better staying power. I never heard any of the staff saying anything other than how ridiculious the so called reports were.

Sour grapes if you ask me.
 
I, too, have known stable lads at Pipey's. I have no idea whether or not any of the allegations were true but it was a dismissable offence to be in the yard after lunch and before evening stables.
 
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