Top Irish trainer facing drugs charges

Damning, and I’m a firm believer that the apparent laissez-faire in the old sod, also prevails in the UK (see Henderson cases).

This kind of bullshit killed Le Tour, and we want to be watchful it doesn’t do the same to our sport. It’s not like we don’t have an inage problem already.
 
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When it does occur Grassy the public mostly forget it 5 minutes later...as for image the whip and the National are far bigger problems.

I have always said they need to look at the whole doping rules and change many of them..

Like Henderson giving a horse a medication that allowed him to run and gets banned

As I have said often someone spends 300,000 on a horse that cant run but could if certain medications were allowd

Steroids are no no or anything that allows a perfectly fit animal to run without but something to stop a horse bursting blood vessels
is medication not a friggin drug
 
I'll read the article in full tomorrow but both Kimmage and Walsh have being wanting this angle for yonks

They'd prefer to get the Rugger Buggers first, but the level of Omerta there is staggeringly disciplined. Their problem with racing sources is that there is no such thing as talking horses.
 
They'd prefer to get the Rugger Buggers first, but the level of Omerta there is staggeringly disciplined. Their problem with racing sources is that there is no such thing as talking horses.

What would they say anyway..." heavy shlt man "
 
This article by Brian O'Connor appeared in the Irish Times on 14 December:

[h=1]Jim Bolger’s incendiary statements should shake racing to its foundations[/h][h=2]One of the greatest trainers ever believes drug cheats are getting away with it[/h]




It’s six weeks since Jim Bolger declared drugs to be Irish racing’s number one problem. He doesn’t believe there’s a level playing field. These are incendiary statements from one of the sport’s grandees and should shake racing to its foundations.


One of the greatest trainers in the history of the sport here believes drug cheats are getting away with it.


So cue an existential crisis, right? Perhaps a glut of introspection or even recrimination? Or at the very least feverish speculation about how best to save the reputation of a sector long a symbol of Irish sporting excellence?


The credibility of a government backed industry worth billions, and employing thousands, has been questioned by one of its leading figures. At the very least the validity of Bolger’s claims would seem to require being publicly thrashed out.


Just imagine if Brian Cody said performance enhancing drugs were rife in hurling. Or Leo Cullen claimed Leinster rugby wasn’t competing on a level playing field due to doping. The impact would be seismic, the public debate all-consuming.


But not a bit of it. Six weeks later and rather than sound and fury there’s been little more than furtive silence. True to form, a sport and industry has obeyed its instincts and hunkered down to ride out the storm.


Bolger got heard but apparently there’s nothing much to see here. Horse Racing Ireland said it’s a regulatory matter and referred to the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board. The self-elected body formerly known as the Turf Club flung around spotless testing statistics which reassured only those anxious for reassurance and its top officials stayed notably mute.


If Bolger’s aim was to generate a conversation about drug testing in racing then it isn’t a very public one.


Colleagues of his passed the buck to the Trainers Association - of which Bolger too is a member - and it declined to comment.


Even privately there is reluctance to discuss this. An issue of fundamental importance to the sport’s credibility appears to have got dismissed as an embarrassing example of one of their own peeing inside the tent. Bolger might be off a few Christmas card lists this year.


Since he’s a rather thorny figure, rarely concerned about being top of the handicap in any popularity stakes, Bolger is unlikely to lose sleep over that.


Invariably there were a few grumbles that he shouldn’t toss around accusations without backing them up. But since naming names in such circumstances is a high-speed shortcut to the High Court it’s a pretty empty demand.


However, the fact such a high-profile figure as the man who saddled New Approach to win the 2008 Epsom Derby is frustrated enough to speak out testifies to the gravity of all this. Because racing figures buck the traces like this practically never. Whatever’s in the tent usually stays firmly in it.


Of course the comparative lack of public reaction could be just down to low expectations too. Doping in the GAA or rugby is news. Racing’s stereotype is more like it’s going on all the time anyway and everyone’s still betting so why sweat.


The reality is much more nuanced. The medication minefield here is nothing in comparison to the badlands of US racing. Anti-bleeding drugs are used there even on race-days despite their capacity to also serve as masking agents.


When it comes to doping Irish racing cannot afford to continue indulging its instinct for inertia. Dismissing dissent is a reflex that ultimately won’t do it any good. There is also the reality that other racing jurisdictions around the globe are playing catch-up too. As with every sport the fight against doping is always evolving. If the rewards are big enough there will always be cheats.


No other racing country, however, has as much at stake in taking the fight to them, and being seen to do so. This small island is the third biggest producer of foals in the world. A couple of billion a year is generated by racing and breeding. Up to 16,000 jobs are directly linked to it. It’s reputation is vital.


If the implications of Brexit is an immediate issue for racing, as is continuing to ride out the coronavirus storm, there is also a sense of both being to a large extent out of the sport’s hands. Tackling the drugs threat isn’t. Yet a chronic lack of urgency appears to exist.


Bolger’s comments haven’t come out of nowhere. There is abundant and sorry evidence over the last decade of drugs scandals in Irish racing and official complacency in response.


It is nine years since Department of Agriculture officials raided Philip Fenton’s yard and found anabolic steroids. Shortly afterwards commercial quantities of the anabolic steroid, Nitrotain, were found at the home of the former vet, John Hughes, brother of trainer, Pat Hughes.


As a result a cross-industry anti-doping task force recommended all of five years ago that a system be implemented to allow traceability of thoroughbreds throughout their lives, whether in training or not, which should be a fundamental requirement of any effective drugs regime.


That system is still not in place. There have been steps taken towards it but the pace of change has been glacial. It has often appeared that the focus has been instead on bitter internecine feuding and a grim failure to see the big picture.


It’s a context that means Bolger’s attempt to jolt the system shouldn’t be dismissed. When it comes to doping Irish racing cannot afford to continue indulging its instinct for inertia. Dismissing dissent is a reflex that ultimately won’t do it any good.


Bitter experience suggests it is delusional to assume the sector here doesn’t contain some prepared to cheat. That Irish racing has more to lose than almost anyone else by not being on the front foot in tackling them is obvious. Yet it still appears to be dragging its feet.


Pointing that out does not let the side down. What does is circling the wagons and focussing on keeping the best side out rather than bluntly addressing the substance of how best to make sure the game is clean.
 
Walsh at it again in Sunday Times today............ “Here is a place where every excuse, regardless of its plausibility, is accepted, every trainer is thanked for their co-operation and most fines are waived.”..........
 
Charles Byrnes has had his licence suspended for six months following a failed post-race drugs test on Viking Hoard at Tramore in October 2018
 
Sounds very efficient and effective. Maybe they could get the perpetrator (NOT C Byrnes) to organise the vaccine roll out.
 
This is rancid! The biggest bombshell is that Betfair was allowing a dark money Ltd company facilitate cheating.
 
Also I cant understand why there was over a years gap from the samples being tested to him being banned. He has been able to run his horses as normal for the past 12 months right??

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6 month for that. Jeez. A lifetime ban wouldn’t be unjustly.

No way, Jose!
He was honest about his neglect, and indicated it was fairly common pratice; so he should lose his livelihood and his reputation for being the unwitting tool of some oriental criminal organisation, a process which was shown not to his benefit, at all?
 
Also I cant understand why there was over a years gap from the samples being tested to him being banned. He has been able to run his horses as normal for the past 12 months right??

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Innocent until proven otherwise, and in fairness rightly so.
 
No way, Jose!
He was honest about his neglect, and indicated it was fairly common pratice; so he should lose his livelihood and his reputation for being the unwitting tool of some oriental criminal organisation, a process which was shown not to his benefit, at all?

Erm. What?
 
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