Showjumper Jessica Kürten confirmed to The Irish Timesyesterday that one of her top horses has tested positive for a prohibited substance. She denied that she had given anything to the horse.
The world number four, who is competing this week at the European Showjumping Championships in Mannheim, Germany, confirmed that there had been a positive result on a sample taken from Castle Forbes Maike at La Baule in May this year. The mare, one of a string of top-class horses owned by Lady Georgina Forbes, won the €100,000 Grand Prix at the French show.
Kürten had been refusing to speak to the Irish media at the championships in Mannheim, but she broke her silence yesterday to confirm the positive result. "There is a positive dope test," she told The Irish Times, "but there is absolutely nothing to ground this. I didn't give the horse anything."
Kürten said last night that there had been problems with notification from the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) of the positive test. "The notification to the Irish federation disappeared," she said. "It came in one day before I had to get back to them [FEI] to tell them what I wanted to do. It's very strange," she said. "The B sample hasn't been analysed yet."
Kürten also said yesterday that she was unfamiliar with the name of the prohibited substance listed in the official notification.
Under the June 2006 FEI equine anti-doping and medication control rules, Kürten has the right to request confirmatory analysis of the B sample. If the B sample also tests positive, the case will be heard by the FEI tribunal and Kürten could face sanctions, including suspension and the loss of prize-money from La Baule.
The most high-profile Irish equine doping case was the positive test on Cian O'Connor's 2004 Athens Olympics gold medal horse Waterford Crystal. O'Connor was finally stripped of his Olympic medal in March 2005 and Kürten refused to ride on Irish teams with O'Connor until the end of that year.
Another of Kürten's horses, Castle Forbes Libertina, tested positive for a prohibited substance at a fixture in Calgary in September 2004. Kürten said at the time that the positive test on Libertina, the mare she is riding at this week's European championships, was as a result of contaminated feedstuff. The case was later dropped by FEI.