Luca Cumani yesterday strongly denied claims made in a statement last Friday by the Aga Khan as to why the owner removed all his horses from Cumani's Newmarket stable.

Cumani, who sent out Kahyasi to win the Epsom and Irish Derbys for the Aga Khan in 1988, initially expressed shock and surprise at the devastating blow of losing 30 horses.

In just over a year two of the Aga Khan's horses trained by Cumani were tested positive for a banned substance and the owner sought assurances from the trainer that effective controls on the administration of medication would be put in place.

It was stated that Cumani had been given three months to meet the requirements and the Aga Khan said that by the end of last year he had not received assurances satisfactory to him.

Cumani's statement reads:

"HH the Aga Khan's statement as to why he has decided to remove all his horses from my yard is misleading and damaging; and, as it has been widely quoted in the international and racing press, I feel it important to put the record straight.

"HH the Aga Khan wrote to me on September 21st 1999 expressing understandable and justified dismay at the positive test of Zalal and quite reasonably seeking assurance from me that `fail safe' systems would be put in place so that a further repeat of a similar mistake became a virtual impossibility.

"Specifically - and contrary to what is said in his press statement - he asked me to inform him of all the steps and procedures I had implemented `within the next six months'.

"My response was one of total and immediate co-operation, I have kept His Highness informed as to the ways in which his requirements were being met and at no stage have I received any indication that he was other than fully satisfied with the spirit and substance of my reaction to his letter of September 21st 1999.

"On November 30th I notified him of discussions I was having with the British Horse Racing Training Board about medication management and also that the employee whose errors resulted in positive findings in respect of both Sharera and Zalal had left my employment.

"On December 11th 1999, I notified him of a meeting I had arranged with Peter Webbon, chief veterinary officer to the Jockey Club, which is taking place on January 14th to review all medical treatment and practices.

"I accept that it is for an owner to choose who trains for him.

"It is not however possible for me to remain silent when the grounds given for the removal of these horses from my yard - namely that I was failing `to put in place the measures necessary to protect the Aga Khan from the risk of a further failure of a horse owned by him to compete within the Rules of Racing' - are so fundamentally and misleadingly at variance with the facts."