Trainer Philip Fenton has been fined a total of €2,500 after a winner he saddled at Kilbeggan in June was disqualified for failing a drugs test.
After landing a handicap hurdle at the Co Westmeath track, the Fenton-trained Shraheen tested positive for triamcinolone acetonide (TCA), a corticosteroid anti-inflammatory medication commonly used to treat injured or inflamed joints but prohibited on race-day.
An Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board referrals panel heard details of the case last Thursday when it emerged that the medicines register at Fenton’s Co Tipperary yard was neither complete nor up to date when inspected.
The panel chaired by Peter Allen fined Fenton €1,250 for breaching the prohibited substance rules and another €1,250 for failing to keep proper and accurate records of the medicines administered to his horses.
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“We found that there were significant breaches over a long period of certain items which should have been included in the medicines register and there are a number of blanks in columns that should have been filled,” Allen said.
Fenton said in evidence that he had over 600 runners with no doping issues and explained that his vet advised him to treat Shraheen with TCA, recommending a withdrawal period of 14-22 days. He said he gave the animal a withdrawal period of 24 days.
The IHRB’s deputy head of veterinary operations Dr Graham Adams told the panel there is no published detection time for TCA but there is a minimum stand down time of 14 days. He also said withdrawal time can vary depending on differences in pathology within the joints and the precise route by which it is administered.
Fenton was suspended from training for three years in 2014 after a Department of Agriculture inspection of his premises in 2012 resulted in him being found guilty in the District Court of eight charges of possessing banned animal medicines, including anabolic steroids.
The former champion amateur jockey and multiple Grade One-winning trainer returned to the training ranks in 2018 and saddled his first winner back at Tramore on New Year’s Day in 2019. He has had six winners during the current National Hunt season and is due to have a runner at Galway on Tuesday.
In their ruling, the referrals panel also said: “It is our view that if elective testing had been carried out it would have been of great benefit in this case and in any other case and we would strongly recommend that it should be considered by all trainers in the future”.
In other regulatory news, trainers John ‘Shark’ Hanlon and Luke W Comer are set to have their appeals against the severity of license suspensions handed out to them by the IHRB heard next week.
Hanlon was handed a 10-month suspension for damaging the reputation of racing on the back of social media footage that emerged in June of a dead horse in a trailer being towed through Paulstown village in Kilkenny by Hanlon’s horsebox.
In another high-profile case, Comer, son of billionaire businessman Luke Comer, was suspended for a year after being found to have damaged racing’s reputation when decomposed horse carcasses were found on his Co Meath property by Department of Agriculture inspectors in 2021.
On Monday, the IHRB confirmed that Hanlon’s appeal will be heard next Monday (October 14th) while Comer’s is due to take place next Thursday (October 17th). An IHRB spokesman also said the appeals are in relation to the severity of the penalties rather than the sanctions themselves.
The regulator said it had currently nothing to say in relation to the continuing disciplinary process arising from the dramatic late withdrawal of the Katy Brown-trained Petrol Head from the Guinness Galway Hurdle on the morning of the race in August.
Just hours before the big race, the well-fancied runner was found to have failed a dope test after his previous run at Bellewstown.
Co Kildare-based Brown said the prohibited substance found in the ex-Ronan McNally trained horse was clenbuterol and accused the IHRB of harassment, claiming it didn’t want Petrol Head to run in Ireland’s richest handicap hurdle. She also said there’s “no connection whatsoever” between the horse and its former trainer.
“We don’t comment on ongoing investigations,” an IHRB spokesman said on Monday.
It is a dozen years, meanwhile, since Patrick Mullins combined with Jim Bolger to win a Galway Festival bumper with Annie Power and the partnership are back in Ballybrit action on Tuesday.
They team up with the filly Rural Link who is on a retrieval mission after dramatically running out under Mullins in the closing stages of her last start at Listowel. Forewarned could mean forearmed this time for the sport’s most successful amateur rider.
The high-class staying hurdler Buddy One makes his debut over fences in a four-runner conditions chase.
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