Drug-testing regime for crucial bloodstock industry not at the races

A long time ago I held a horse when it was getting an injection. “What’s that?” I asked the much more worldly man busy searching for a vein. “Vitamins,” he replied. Maybe it was, although the grin on his face as he said it couldn’t have been more knowing.

That was more than 20 years ago. It didn’t happen in any fancy racing stables, but it was a thoroughbred getting the injection and it was considered as casual a thing to do as mucking out. Except it wasn’t really – otherwise why grin?

Irish racing’s regulatory body, the Turf Club, can drug-test horses after they race. It can also test them “in training” when under the care of a licensed trainer. Once a horse is “out of training” though, it’s a different story. The Turf Club has no authority over an unlicensed stable.

Horses can be out of training for any number of reasons, but in general it is injury. And once it’s out of a licensed trainer’s hands there is effectively no official deterrent to what treatment is used. Only the most pea-green of innocents can believe that in such an environment, where anabolic steroids can clear a horse’s system in just a couple of days, and the chances of getting caught are as close to zero as makes no difference, the temptation to cheat is being resisted by all.

Right now, a couple of weeks from the most high-profile race meeting of the year, Irish racing is reeling from news that two trainers have been charged with possession of anabolic steroids.

It's always been a curio of racing here that it's most important festival actually takes place in another country. But the nightmare scenario for authorities on both sides of the Irish Sea is a Cheltenham Gold Cup winner trained by someone facing charges of possessing anabolic steroids.

Ministerial response
That's the short-term PR nightmare. But the issue of medication in racing is something much bigger than any single fixture or individual. The sport in this country has some ugly realities coming home to roost. How it responds will define it in the long

term. For racing’s sake, it is vital it gets it right and is seen to do so.

It’s a tough ask. Especially since what cannot change is the root problem, which is that the most important single figure in racing isn’t a trainer, owner or jockey but the relevant Minister in charge of the subsidy that finances the industry.

In most racing jurisdictions, finance is generated from punters, giving professionals a vital self-interest in maintaining public confidence in integrity. But in Ireland the financial priority is keeping the State money-hose open to the ruling body, Horse Racing Ireland, which in turn distributes it to the umpteen vested industry interests feeding off it. The punter is largely irrelevant.

It’s been a comfortable system up to now. In return for the money, what government wants is prestige, jobs and an unrocked boat. And racing has delivered on all three, including maintaining a veneer of probity that has substituted for a conspicuous reluctance to lift any rocks that might reveal unwelcome home truths on the use of medication.

That absence of resolve manifests itself most conspicuously financially. In the five years up to 2013, funding allocated to the Turf Club for integrity by Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) was cut by almost a quarter. And this at a time when it could be argued the recession meant any motivation to cheat increased. This year there has been a slight increase, mostly as a reaction to the steroid controversies in Britain.

HRI’s focus has remained on maintaining prize money levels, a tone from the top that has permeated the industry with corporate-speak assurances about integrity fooling no one, especially punters, in the face of overwhelming financial evidence to the contrary.

Turf Club sidelined
The result is a Turf Club policing service widely perceived to be neutered

, an organisation trying to survive in a political environment where many in the ruling body appear to want to reduce it to irrelevance. The latest blow to the Turf Club’s credibility is that it has been largely kept out of the loop by Department of Agriculture officials during its investigations over the last two years; officials from the very department that funds racing.

Minister for Agriculture Simon Coveney now has a key role in Irish racing's future and preservation of public trust therein. Negotiations over a new administrative infrastructure for the sport have been ongoing for months, mostly it seems in terms of trying to bring administration and integrity under the one umbrella.

Ironically, this situation presents Coveney with a rare opportunity for reform that would prioritise a meaningful, integrity service – backed by money and determination from the top – encouraged to presume the worst in terms of potential breaches of the medication rules. Something which has be in everyone’s best long-term interests.

Funding is always the most concrete illustration of intent. It's a no-brainer that a bloodstock industry as big as our's should be able to track horses in and out of training. It happens in France. But French racing has a financial model that pays for the requisite boots on the ground. Irish racing's model is different, effectively coming down the discretion of an individual politician. The Minister is likely to be at Cheltenham in a fortnight flying the flag. Much more important will be what he does afterwards.