A familiar sight for NH fans© Photo Healy Racing
Reports by their nature are often ends in themselves, an exercise in replacing action with movement, so there is some scepticism about any impact the Anti-Doping Task Force document about to be rubber-stamped by the Horse Racing Ireland board might have. Sceptics will believe it has already served its function, in being seen to do something: only time will tell if they’re right, but substantial leadership will be required to prove them wrong.
It is to the credit of those who compiled it - and representatives from all sectors of the thoroughbred game from owners, to trainers, breeders and sales companies were involved in the 16-person committee — that even after having been clearly ‘legalled’ to the edge of meaning, the report still manages to ultimately set out what you and I might be for forgiven for thinking a billion Euro industry really should have in place already.
Recommended lifetime ban for animals who test positive for illicitly administered prohibited substances that are banned at all times is correct. The long-term impact of anabolic steroids for instance is notoriously hard to pin down but scrutiny of their impact on human competition for instance indicates we’re talking years rather than months.
That the Irish horse industry, which rarely fails to take an opportunity to plug its own value, should have its own specialised laboratory is obvious. Why doesn’t it have one already? But since it hasn’t, pumping in significant money to upgrade what’s there already to new international standards, would be a reasonable stop-gap measure. A minimum requirement surely has to be the capability of properly testing for the constantly evolving array of substances cheats are willing to use.
In that light the idea that racing should wait for the outcome of other jurisdictions to go further down the biological passport and hair-sampling route before trying them for size here reads pretty lame but it is hardly illogical either.
Ultimately however, the seriousness of how the Irish industry takes the fight against doping will come in the long-term attitude adopted towards the major element of the Task Force Report — Out Of Competition Testing.
Logically the professional self-interest in justifiably presenting an industry as dope-free is obvious. Yet behind the flowery rhetoric this is clearly a minefield, one which is reflected in some notably vague aspiration material that is contained in the Task Force report.
The recommendation is that there should be more Out of Competition Testing and that standard declarations that an animal has not been administered anabolic steroids should be in place at foal registration, sales entry, and for any change of ownership. The theory is sound. Enforcing that theory, and getting the political will and resources to back it up, is likely to be a lot more complex.
The Task Force recommends that protocols be drawn up in conjunction with the Breeders Association at to how any testing on stud farms would be carried out. It doesn’t suggest what kind of protocols. It doesn’t even specify who will carry out any testing. It carries the hallmarks of a delicately parsed piece of language designed to keep everybody on board while kicking the can of actually coming up with a way to do what’s necessary down the road.
That’s not particularly encouraging for those ambitious to get to the heart of any meaningful attempt to combat doping, something that should be of fundamental importance to an industry anxious to protect and safeguard its credibility. There is nothing more important than combating cheats, and being seen to combat them, which means putting in place clear systems, or protocols if you like, that means the fear of getting caught outweighs the temptation to dope.
That means those throughout the industry in a position to push through reforms, such as those outlined in the Task Force report, have to actually put their shoulders to the wheel and shove rather than simply talk about it. Recommendations are one thing; acting on them is another. Tentatively nudging at the crucial area of access for out-of-competition testers won’t be enough. But who’s got the clout to push through short-sighted sectional concerns and focus on the big credibility picture?
What certainly won’t be good enough is the old ‘show us the evidence and we’ll act’ attitude, or a smug assumption that because nothing comes to light everything is hunky dory. That’s what helped produce a need for a Task Force report in the first place. In the fight against doping the assumption must always be the cheats are a step ahead.
In that context Louis Romanet’s comments last week about racing doing better than most in the battle against the doping felt a little smug. The chairman of the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities said racing is doing better than most sports in implementing drug-free policies. He also warned against complacency too, but pointing to the integrity problems other sports face in comparison smacked more than a little of the complacency he spoke about.
Ultimately anyone can talk the talk. It’s finding those able and willing to back it up with walking the walk that makes the difference.
That’s a readily transferrable principle, one that could even apply to the continually excoriating analysis of how jump racing here is on the skids for any number of reasons, such as a concentration of talent in a tiny number of hands, which in turn produces a lack of competition, and overall makes things very tough for a lot of people financially.
This produces a lot of ‘something must be done’ stuff which sadly isn’t usually followed up by realistic ideas as to what that ‘something’ should be.
It goes against the grain to go all Tory bastard about this but there does appear to be a sense of entitlement to a lot of it, which hardly tallies with an industry often self-consciously hard-nosed when things are going well. Maybe it’s because the near- €60 million government financial safety-net allows racing to ignore how its fundamental economics are basket-case stuff. Maybe state funding encourages people to believe everyone’s entitled to a slice of the pie. But it’s unrealistic.
