The biggest doping scandal in the history of Horse Racing........

Gotchee
Now you know, baffled no more..........was the same with the greyhounds for years, but better testing nowadays, but still a long ways short of what it should be........I would certainly guess that it was a tip off. Just had to be..........

Sheikh Mo owns and runs the whole caboodle over in  Dubai so its unlikely that there was any dope testing. It must have been a tip off, someone rang crimestoppers. The integrity services of the Turf Club will be under pressure now, even with their 6 million euro Budget. Are Godolphin unique in this type and this scale of skullduggery?

Possibly a case of truth being stranger than fiction. At a macro-economic level it seems inconceivable that anyone (Middle-Eastern, Irish or English) would risk a multi-million investment in bloodstock by so flagrantly abusing the rules. Cases of doping come and go and there's little doubt there is an absence of true determination to discover what is really going on. There is a noteable absence of whistle-blowers if its true but, as we all know, nothing putrid can last (take your pick from the Catholic Church to the Iron Curtain/Middle-East to political fraud or economic mismanagement) the truth will always out. If Godolphin and their cheerleaders have been responsible for wholesale abuse and doping then, arguably, it has WORSENED rather than improved their results for a decade so that seems illogical.

A rogue trainer with no European racing pedigree succumbs to the pressure of failure?

A Dubai ruler, anxioulsy looking over his shoulder at worsening tensions in Bahrain and the wider Magrheb and Levant decides to pull in his horns and end his glorious accociation with European bloodstock. First Frankie, now this. All empires eventually end in disaster. One thing's for sure, the annual visit to meet the Queen at Royal Ascot suddenly won't look so enticing and, assuming Chemical Al gets fired, we all know the best course of action for Godolphin would be to spread their horses around to many trainers and they will return to the glory days via Stoute, Cecil, Bolger et al. And yet this would be failure of the great project on a grand scale.

http://www.dubaiworldcup.com/race/horsemen-info/rules-regulations

NOTES ON PROHIBITED SUBSTANCES

1.Participants should be aware of the unpredictable and prolonged excretion times of certain Prohibited Substances, such as long-acting anabolic steroids (e.g. Boldenone), long-acting corticosteroids (e.g. methylprednisolone) and procaine from the use of procaine penicillin. It is strongly recommended that participants utilise the pre-race elective sampling program to determine the suitability to race of horses that have been administered any of these substances - see section 4 below."

Astonishing and pretty damning don't you think?, suggests Sheikh Mo was well aware?, in their own rules they're actually almost advocating the use of banned substance but please give it time to flush out of your system?.

Surely every trainer has a complete record of what each horse eats and what medication is administered . Cant think of much else the authorities would be interested in provided the animals are not subject to abuse .

The veterinary care aspect to training involves trained professional practitioners . And someone must order up drugs and medication .

That a trainer in charge of very expensive horseflesh claims he did not know that anabolic steroids being administered to his horses , by his staff , or by his vets , or anyone else were banned ( except presumably in very specific circumstances ) is simply ludicrous .

That another thread says that he would have been all right in Australia raises another lot of questions . And considering the use of bute in USA , the world wide element of competition on a global scale evolves to a  farce .  Have long thought that .

No drug can make an animal run faster apparently .  But it can assist an animal to run at top speed for longer .  The Aussies were the first to develope that aspect of horse care , it percolated through to here in the 1960's  , but thankfully got detected ( after quite a few coups ) and was stopped .

Horse racing is not the first or only sport to have attracted the "additives "syndrome . Cycling has been bedevilled for upwards of 40 -50 years by the chemists , swimming has had problems , athletics has suffered , the list just gets longer and longer year by year .  Professionalism is partly to blame , no rugby player up to the 1990's would have spent fortunes on additives and weekly diet , partly because there was no money in it . Would hate to fund a weekly bill encompassing those aspects of diet nowadays for the pros !

Unfortunately this story will run and run , not good for anyone involved .  And if the punters ever up stumps and leave , there will be no industry .

Seems the stable vet is just as an important a cog in the wheel as the trainer is himself, or in some cases even more important?.

Anyone remember when Binocular was a certain nr for the champion hurdle a few year ago just a fortnight before the race?, scratched by all the bookmakers and trading at colossal odds on the machine, virtually nobody was aware Binocular had been to Ireland and had undergone veterinary attention under John Halley, the renowned Irish vet employed by the Ballydoyle/Coolmore operation, and the horses remarkable transformation was complete and duly hosed up in the Champion hurdle.

Kicking King ?

Bet there was a vet involved somewhere along the line , silver .

"Professional" opinions ( quite rightly in a lot of cases ) carry a certain gravitas .  But blind faith in them is dangerous -- know any doctors who have never got it wrong ?

Couldnt be seen to show the seedier side of racing when they're showing and promoting racings shop window blackwater.

A few days to go yet so they might find a slot to discuss it but I wouldnt bank on it, be interesting to hear what Ted has to say on the matter?.

all very quiet in the media,a bit like cycling,science trying to out-do the testers,people will try to profit to win prizemoney whatever the sport

Kevin Blake has wrote about it. I wasn't aware about the situation in Australia, very shocking.

http://www.theirishfield.ie/site/article.php?id=3046&cid=5

Blake’s Blog: Al Zarooni Case Poses Many Questions

Last Monday, racing was shaken to the core by the announcement that 11 horses trained by Mahmood Al Zarooni, one of the leading trainers for Sheikh Mohammed’s Godophin racing operation, had tested positive for one of two types of anabolic steroids, ethylestranol and stanozolol.

For those unfamiliar with these medications, the use of anabolic steroids such as stanozolol, better known as Winstrol, can increase appetite, muscle mass, strength and red blood cell production in horses. Whether it will make a slow horse faster is a point of debate, but it can undoubtedly help a horse to physically thrive and reach its full athletic potential. While some media outlets have chosen to sensationalise the notion of administering anabolic steroids to horses, billing stanozolol as “the steroid that Ben Johnson used”, it isn’t all that uncommon in the wider racing world.

Indeed, in Australia, Al Zarooni would have actually escaped punishment altogether for his offences, as out-of-competition use of anabolic steroids is permitted as long as they don’t turn up in raceday samples. Remember that the next time you marvel at the remarkable size and strength of Australian-trained sprinters at Royal Ascot.

While in America, anabolic steroids were a legitimate and routine part of the conditioning of racehorses until being banned by most states in 2009.

However, there is a totally different stance on anabolic steroids in Britain and Ireland. They are not permitted to be used on horses in licensed racing yards at any time.

As shocking as the news of the positive results were, Al Zarooni’s explanation raised more questions than it answered. He stated: “I have made a catastrophic error. Because the horses involved were not racing at the time, I did not realise that what I was doing was in breach of the rules of racing.”

The very obvious question in reply to that is, if Al Zarooni was unaware that the rules of racing only prohibited the use of steroids to horses that were racing, for how long and to what extent has he allowed horses in his care to be administered steroids whilst they were being conditioned to return to racing?

One imagines that the key to steroid use, in common with the innumerable common medications that can be given to racehorses legally but are not permitted to be in a horses system when racing, is that they must not be administered to the horse within an established withdrawal period prior to racing.

What we know is that none of Al Zarooni’s horses that tested positive had raced since early-November and the tests in question were undertaken on April 9th. Given that this was over two weeks after the Flat season had commenced and less than a month before Certify, one of the horses that tested positive, was due to contest the 1000 Guineas, one can reasonably assume that that the horses had not been administered the banned substances recently. According to guidelines given to American trainers, the withdrawal period for stanozolol is in the region of 30-45 days. Thus, one has to wonder that if the tests had been undertaken a month or two earlier, how many of the 45 horses that were tested would have returned as positive?

With that in mind, the next question that one can’t help but ponder is whether or not the horses in question wintered in Newmarket or in common with many Godolphin horses over the years, had spent the winter in Dubai, and if so, how long had they been back in England prior to the tests being undertaken. Suffice to say, the BHA inquiry is sure to be very revealing.

As well as the questions that this case raises about the individual trainer concerned, it also raises wider questions. Are these practices an isolated incident, or are they common policy within not just the Godolphin operation, but amongst other top European-based trainers?

One can only hope that such a high-profile case as this will give the racing authorities both in Britain and Ireland the drive to invest in increased out-of-competition testing and to seriously look at the entire out-of-competition testing policies so that we can get real answers to these very serious questions.

The main problem that the authorities face in tackling out-of-competitive drug administration is the grey area of non-licensed yards. Under the current rules, horses can only be tested by the authorities when they are officially returned as in training and stabled on licensed premises.

If a horse is in a pre-training yard or back at their owners stud farm, they cannot be tested by the authorities and thus those that seek to gain an unfair advantage could potentially administer a cocktail of banned substances prior to sending the horse back to their trainer after the withdrawal periods for the substances have elapsed.

In Ireland, a possible solution could involve spot-checks on ALL registered equine premises by the Department of Agriculture. Using steroids on animals is an illegal activity in Ireland and is an area in which the Department has quite a bit of experience.

We all love this sport and while coverage such as the Al Zarooni case does the game no favours, racing cannot and should not make the mistake of closing its eyes and ears and hoping that this is an isolated incident. The expense of increasing the levels of out-of-competition testing and the non-monetary cost of the bad press that would result from potentially increased numbers of positive tests in the short term are prices that are worth paying to promote a level playing field and for the long-term integrity and reputation of our sport.

Imagine if Aidan O Brien was in Zarooni's shoes the press would simply crucify him.

Special interests fill this game and no one will dare critize his Highness the Dictator.

Good riddance IMO.....The Godolphin name is shamed forever!

Crisford....

How does he still have a job?? the whole thing is rancid

The whole schemozzle about what horses take into their system now has to come under scrutiny , world wide in particular , otherwise there will be no WORLDWIDE .  If there are no world wide rules , properly policed , there is no future in international racing .

The rules here in most of Europe are stringent and sensible , occasionally innocent horse carers get tripped up by the most minute traces of "illegal substances " . USA tolerates substances we dont , Australia also has different rules and views on steroids .  Think Hong Kong and Singapore are in the European "boat" , stringent .

If horses disappear off the training establishment for a break , who feeds them , who administers to them ?  The horses cant talk , the only evidence re their systems comes from samples . But if a horse comes back after a "holiday " looking  big and full of beans and having thrived , who knows what is in its system ? 

When we punters cant trust form and other factors , we wont be long finding some other medium for our punting . That should worry those who run racing  , but I am not sure they are all capable of waking up and sorting the rules properly .

Two trainers were caught by a new test in Ireland when I mentioned it here the usual suspects reported me and threatened me with litigation.

Considering Irish show jumping has been shown to be rife with doping and this a sport thats only really about prestige?.
Irish racing with its gambling incentives, often lucrative prisemoney and a possible lucrative career at stud suggests it's almost certainly awash with banned substances.

Begs the question how many surprise visits do the Turf Club carry out on individual stables if any?, or do they just do the norm and test only race winners, and even then you can ask the question how many of these samples are actually sent to the lab to be analysed?, as it costs money.

Most of the drugs are usually out of the system by race days anyway.

The bad news for Silvergreaser is one sure fire way of knowing if a horse was doped in his career is by following his stud career.

Doped horses always flop at stud.

Show jumpers are not given performance enhancing drugs they are given drugs to enable rapping and other outlawed practices take place

Wildman so worried are Irish Equestrian sports about the increase in use of prohibited substance that theyve recently introduced random dope testing themselves rather than rely on the FEI the world equestrian organisation to find the cheats.

Also give me some proof that doped horses dont do well at stud wildman?.

It would be more believable if Godolphin were giving them drugs to make them go slow based on the evidence of the last few years.