Racing

Trainer Luke Comer loses appeal against three-year licence suspension for doping offences

Businessman’s ban will come into force on July 15th

Luke Comer. Photograph: Cyril Byrne

Brian O'Connor
Thu Jun 27 2024 - 18:26

Billionaire businessman Luke Comer has lost his appeal against an Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board three-year suspension of his licence to train racehorses. His ban will come into force on July 15th.

An IHRB statement on Thursday evening confirmed the decision by a three-person appeals body chaired by Justice Peter Kelly.

Monaco-based Comer had appealed a series of sanctions announced last September on the back of the most extensive doping controversy in Irish racing history.

After the Comer-trained He Knows No Fear tested positive for an anabolic steroid following a race at Leopardstown in October 2021, an unannounced IHRB raid on his premises near Kilternan, Co Dublin saw a dozen of his horses test positive for the anabolic steroids methandienone and methlylestosterone.

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The drug rule breaches were described as “unprecedented” by the IHRB.

A referrals panel could not establish how the substances got in the horses and found there was no evidence of deliberate doping. But as the licence holder, Comer was held responsible despite him telling the committee he spends just three months of the year in Ireland.

Comer, who was also fined over €85,000 and ordered to pay legal costs of €775,000 to the IHRB, has vehemently denied wrongdoing. However, on the back of a three-day hearing last month, he failed to overturn the training ban.

The IHRB had lodged its own appeal against what it called the leniency of the original referrals committee penalties. That was also dismissed.

The lengthy statement outlining the appeals body decision saw partial success for Comer in appeals against rule breaches that resulted in some of the fines.

In relation to costs, Comer had limited success and the appeals body concluded: “The areas where he was successful took up only a small part of the time of the appeal. A generous allowance in that regard would be 15 per cent.

“He also defeated the appeal of the IHRB on leniency. But that took up a minuscule amount of time and even if he were awarded his costs in respect of that, it would be a bagatelle in the overall context.

“In all the circumstances we are provisionally of the view that the justice of the case is met by directing Mr Comer to pay 75 per cent of the costs of the appeal to the IHRB.”

Comer has three runners at Friday evening’s beginning to the Derby Festival at the Curragh and after last September’s original verdicts, he pledged: “I will use whatever resources I have to make sure that whoever does any damage to my reputation will pay. I am 1,000 per cent innocent. I have never been more right in my life.”

Brian O'Connor

Brian O'Connor

Brian O'Connor is the racing correspondent of The Irish Times. He also writes the Tipping Point column

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