Environmental contamination is often the best defence

On Monday the 16th January 2023 trainer Tony Martin declared his horse Firstman to run in a two mile handicap at Dundalk.

The following day two different vets from the same equine practice each administered 10ml of Cartrophen (used to treat arthritis in horses) to Firstman and one of the vets followed that up with a further 10ml of Sarablock (used to manage pain).

The next day, Wednesday 18th January, Firstman was punted from 9/4 into 13/8 favourite at Dundalk and hacked up.

A urine sample taken from Firstman after that victory was subsequently found to contain a large concentration of Lidocaine (a prohibited substance used for pain relief). The urine sample, which was tested by two different laboratories in the UK and France, was found to contain 20 times the screening limit for the drug.

Neither of the two substances administered to Firstman the day before he raced contained Lidocaine and as this drug has a short-acting window of 4-6 hours it appears almost certain that the drug entered the horse’s system on the day of the race.

Tony Martin couldn’t explain how the horse tested positive for Lidocaine and suggested at the IHRB Referral hearing into the matter that it may have come from ‘environmental contamination’ as a result of soiled bedding in the horse’s stable at Dundalk racecourse.

Martin “was prompted by some high profile IHRB cases to look to feed and bedding as potential sources of contamination.”

There was absolutely no concrete evidence to substantiate Martin’s claim, but it appears the mere suggestion of ‘environmental contamination’ once again had an impact on the outcome of the case.

Rule 148 (i): “A Trainer shall be responsible (except where otherwise provided in these Rules) for everything connected with the welfare, training and running of all Horses under the care of that Trainer and shall be liable to any sanction available to the Stewards, the Referrals Committee, the Licensing Committee or the Appeals Body, as the case may be, unless the Trainer provides a satisfactory explanation.”

Tony Martin appears to have gone to great lengths himself to try and find the source of the Lidocaine. He went back over his stable’s medical records for the month prior to the race in Dundalk to see if any other horse had been prescribed medication containing Lidocaine and also checked if any of his staff who ordinarily came into contact with Firstman were users of cocaine (seemingly Lidocaine is commonly used as a cutting agent in cocaine), but to no avail.

It was presumably after exhausting all other avenues that Martin turned to 'environmental contamination' as the potential source of the Lidocaine.

Ultimately, the trainer did not provide a ‘satisfactory explanation’ which, according to the Rule, leaves him solely responsible for the positive finding.

Here is what the Referral Committee said regarding the above Rule:

“In relation to Rule 148 (i) the Committee considered that the Trainer had endeavoured to provide a satisfactory explanation for the adverse finding but had failed in that regard. This is the natural consequence of the Trainer being unable to demonstrate the route of ingestion or source of the Prohibited Substance on the balance of probabilities. The Committee was of the view that while there was a breach of this Rule, a supplemental or aggravated sanction should not apply.”

Bearing in mind that this is the trainer’s third breach of anti-doping regulations in the last four years (previous two cases were relatively minor) the sanctions imposed amount to fines totalling €11,000.

Martin also had his trainer’s licence withdrawn for six months, but the entire sentence is suspended for a period of two years and if he doesn’t reoffend during that time it will be waived.

The reason why the Referral Committee decided against removing his licence is that the “consequences of a significant sanction, in particular one that may involve the removal of his Licence, is likely to have severe implications for his stable yard and may put it in jeopardy.”

This statement would apply to virtually every stable yard in the country.

Several questions arise from this case, the most pertinent being what was so wrong with Firstman the day before his win at Dundalk that Tony Martin had to employ not one, but two vets to treat him?

The Referral Committee also seemed curious as to the medical condition of the horse prior to the race, but apparently they didn’t ask the trainer and nor did they seek an explanation from either of the vets that treated the horse the day before the race. Instead they relied upon evidence supplied by Dr Lynn Hillyer, their own head of anti-doping, and we are told “she concluded that Firstman must have had an issue that needed treating.” You wouldn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to come to that conclusion! The report goes on to say “what was not clear at the time she wrote her report (19 June 2023) was why the horse was given the anti-inflammatory medicine by two different veterinary surgeons.”

Finding out what was wrong with Firstman 24 hours before he was gambled on to win easily at Dundalk should have been the starting point for any investigation into the horse testing positive for a prohibited substance after the race.

Another significant question to my mind is why any credence was given to the trainer’s suggestion that the horse could have tested positive for Lidocaine by coming into contact with contaminated bedding in the racecourse stable area. We are after all talking about a horse that had 20 times the screening limit for Lidocaine in his system when tested.

This would not only require that the bedding (bagged newspapers supplied by the racecourse) was being reused, which there is no evidence to substantiate, but also that a prohibited substance (containing Lidocaine) had also been present on the bedding.

The Referral Hearing went to great lengths to investigate whether or not bedding had been reused at Dundalk which would suggest that they considered it plausible if that had that been the case it could also have contained a prohibited substance.

This implies that prohibited substances are on occasions present within the stable yard areas at racecourses, which I suppose is fairly obvious considering that Firstman may have come into contact with one while at Dundalk racecourse, but this simply should never be the case.

It is over five years since Viking Hoard was nobbled in the stable yard at Tramore in 2018. Here we have a case in 2023 when it is again highly likely another prohibited substance was present in a stable yard, this time at Dundalk.

You can’t get a bottle of water through airport security, yet drugs are still apparently slipping past racecourse security on an ongoing basis. With an average of six IHRB security officers present at each race meeting and over 500 CCTV cameras now in operation in the racecourse stable yards you would have to wonder how this is still happening.