The president of the Equestrian Federation of Ireland (EFI), Mrs Avril Doyle, has confirmed that the documents stolen during last night's break in at the body's offices were linked to the doping case involving Ireland's Olympic gold medallist Cian O'Connor.
Ms Doyle said this evening the documents were important in the context of recent happenings but she refused to elaborate while there was an ongoing garda investigation.
Earlier she said cleaning staff arriving at the office at Kildare Paddocks, Kill, at around 7.30 a.m. and discovered the break in. She said the front door had been forced open and two of the five internal offices had been broken into.
Speaking to ireland.comshe said: "It would appear some files were disturbed and some others taken. We're still trying to clarify what files were involved".
She said that in the context of an international investigation over the theft of the B sample from Cian O'Connor's Olympic gold medal horse Waterford Crystal involving Lausanne in Switzerland and Cambridgeshire in the UK, that last night's incident "is not just your ordinary break-in".
"If you're asking me if this is your garden variety type of burglary or something more sinister, I'd have to say it's the latter," she told ireland.com.
Mrs Doyle said that no money is kept in the EFI offices.
Gardai have evacuated staff from the building so as to conduct a thorough forensic examination.
Yesterday, a major controversy developed over the theft of the B sample. O'Connor won the show jumping gold at the Olympic Games in Athens. Last month, the EFI announced Waterford Crystal had failed an initial dope test, prompting O'Connor to request the B sample be tested.
British police in Cambridgeshire are working alongside Swiss and French investigators following the disappearance of the urine sample when it was en route to the Horseracing Forensic Laboratory (HFL) in Newmarket.
The sample had been sent by courier from the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) central testing laboratory in Paris to the HFL for confirmatory analysis when it was taken on October 21st.
Yesterday, Mrs Doyle demanded answers from the FEI over the disappearance of the sample.
Mr Eddie Macken, the former trainer of the Olympic team, joined other leading equestrian figures in calling for an inquiry. "It sounds very, very strange. I really think the only way to get to the bottom of this is there has to be an inquiry into this right from the top level," the renowned showjumper said.
"All everybody wants to know is the truth, everybody's name to be cleared and I am sure that Cian O'Connor would like this very much as well. "I think really this has to start with the FEI right from the top back down and the whole thing has to be traced down along," Mr Macken told RTÉ.
Additional reporting: PA