Douvan puts in a big jump at Gowran Park© Photo Healy Racing
Ireland is a great place for tokenism and the temptation to offer up Philip Fenton’s three year disqualification as a sufficient gesture for normal racing service to be resumed will no doubt be irresistible to some. However racing must resist that temptation, and be seen to resist it. A long, laborious and painful process has resulted in one scalp but only the naive or wilfully obstinate will choose to indulge in convenient ‘lone-gunman’ comfort. Fenton now finds himself in a singularly unenviable position but it stretches credulity to suggest he was unique.
The 250kg of steroids - enough for 62,500 doses - imported by the former Department of Agriculture inspector, John Hughes, was stark evidence of market demand. Fenton had enough Nitrotrain for 250 doses. The maths speaks for itself. The libel laws being as they are rules out specifics, which in turn results in accusations of tarring everyone with the same suspicious brush when dealing in generalities. But the view that Fenton is different simply because he got caught is difficult to dismiss as mere cynicism.
What’s important now is getting systems in place that discourage a culture where people feel it is worthwhile taking the chance on cheating. That requires many things, certainly money, but perhaps most importantly of all in conjunction with that finance will be political will. An industry structure which to a significant extent involves professionals policing themselves is hardly a model of transparency but there is a manifest self-interest in assuring that every effort is seen to be made.
Ultimately it could be in the laboratory where the best chance of a sustainable medication model will be created. At the moment horse hair can determine if an animal has been given steroids. What’s vital is finding out when it got it. Thoroughbreds can go through so many hands that that is vital and there are hopes that a scientific breakthrough in establishing a detection process for specifying a date of ingestion is near and may be in place even for 2015.
The Turf Club also has plans to introduce an information hotline next year with five figure rewards for information leading to a conviction. The culture in Ireland generally, never mind in racing, might make that of questionable value. But a test that can reveal a horse’s medication history throughout its life is likely to present a much more effective deterrent to those willing to cheat. Crucially it would also take into account the life of an animal through its years before going into training.
Theoretically some comfort can be taken from there being no new steroid cases revealed in the last two years including since Fenton’s first court appearance flung open a can of worms that many chose not to believe was an issue at all. There is also evidence from other countries where steroids have been commonly and legally used for some time that horses here generally don’t have the bulked up muscle mass that indiscriminate use can produce. But there is no room for complacency.
Credibility demands that officialdom works on a basis of actively pursuing cheats, which means putting resources and will behind them. If such an environment occurs then the trite old cliché about some good coming out of all this might actually be applicable. However the effort must be on-going, long-term and meaningful.
That fact that Willie Mullins has a unique niche in racing history is argument enough for the trainer’s judgement being peerless but that judgement got vindicated once again with Faugheen and Vautour producing supremely stylish displays on their seasonal debuts. It also showed a flexibility of thought that helps indicate just why Mullins is so dominant.
Don’t forget how he almost scoffed at suggestions that Faugheen might be as good as Vautour at Cheltenham last year. Shortly afterwards Mullins even stated he didn’t see Faugheen as a Champion Hurdle horse at all. And then a few weeks later it was Faugheen that ran over two miles at Punchestown, yielding a performance that ultimately saw him kept to hurdling while Vautour was put over fences. Mullins is clearly not scared to be wrong – occasionally.
Vautour was flawless on his Navan debut but Faugheen looked something else again when winning at Ascot. The opposition may not have been superstars but they were hardly mugs either, except that Faugheen made them look like that. The limits of this horse’s potential are so far away they’re almost over the horizon.
And those griping about the scale of Mullins’s domination might be in for a tough time this winter as the strength in depth amongst the novice ranks over both hurdles and fences looks possibly stronger than ever before. At Gowran Mullins sent both Tell Us More and Douvan over hurdles and both look to have limitless potential. And that was on a single day.
Of the pair, Douvan may be the one to fare best over flights but there is a presence to Tell Us More that already makes one picture what he might be like over fences. Paying E360,000 for a winner of a point to point is hardly bargain material in anyone’s language but Michael O’Leary’s got a lot to look forward to.
In comparison Milsean’s maiden hurdle victory at Navan was relatively run-of-the-mill, apart from Bryan Cooper picking up a four day ban for improper riding. The ‘improper’ distinction is important because it presumes intention and the head-on view of how Cooper took his mount across to Paul Carberry as the latter tried to get up his inside between the last two flights suggests the stewards were correct in that interpretation.
That the stewards took their time coming to a decision didn’t sway too many from the view that Cooper would get days but the horse would hold the race, a regulation reality that possibly encouraged Cooper to make the manoeuvre in the first place. Carberry was coming back at him at the line, maybe not enough to suggest the places should have been reversed on this occasion, but again enough to make one wonder what has to happen for the victim to get the benefit of the doubt.
