The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) has confirmed it has not done out-of-competition drug testing on British-trained entries for races in Ireland.
It’s a year since the IHRB and the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) announced an equine anti-doping and medication control initiative that allows regulatory officials on either side of the Irish Sea to carry out testing on big-race entries from the other jurisdiction.
BHA personnel carry out testing here under standard IHRB operating procedures with provision in place for the reverse to occur in Britain.
The BHA has confirmed it will once again carry out out-of-competition testing (OCT) in Ireland in advance of the upcoming Cheltenham Festival. Similar testing last year enabled almost 250 samples taken from more than 120 horses entered for the festival across 14 training yards. All were negative.
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Such BHA testing first began in Ireland in 2014 on the back of the anabolic steroid controversy surrounding trainer Philip Fenton. He subsequently had his license suspended for three years. The BHA’s testing has never uncovered a positive outcome.
Nevertheless, the move was widely viewed as an implicit criticism of the Irish regulator’s anti-doping standards at the time, although the BHA subsequently said it carries out OCT on all international runners at big British festivals.
Last year’s initiative allowed for a reciprocal arrangement, but the IHRB said on Monday it hasn’t yet sent its officials to Britain to carry out testing there.
“We haven’t been over there. We haven’t had the capacity due to a number of high-profile investigations that were carried out,” said an IHRB spokesman. “In addition, there has been ... focus on equine welfare which led to a publication of a report [Equine Injury in Irish Racing Reduction Programme] in November.”
He agreed that the option of sending Irish officials to British yards for testing is “100 per cent there”.
There is no influx of cross-channel trained runners to Ireland compared to the massed ranks of Irish-trained horses that compete at Cheltenham and at the Aintree Festival in April.
However, 37 British-trained horses lined up at last September’s Irish Champions Festival between Leopardstown and the Curragh. There were also two German-trained horses and one from France. Nine cross-channel runners alone lined up for the Group One Flying Five.
A BHA spokesman has said of the pre-Cheltenham testing: “When we test horses out of competition, we are looking for substances which are prohibited at all times, rather than substances which are permitted in training but not on race day.”
In other news, the star French chaser Il Est Francais could be headed for the Ryanair at Cheltenham in preference to the Queen Mother Champion Chase.
Runner-up to Banbridge in the King George on his last start, Il Est Francais has been taken out of the Gold Cup and his part-trainer Noel George reported: “The Ryanair at the moment would be our preference, but we’ll to the last minute to see what the ground [weather] does, and the opposition. But that’s the way we’re leaning.
“I think even on good ground, I think he’d be capable of running in a Champion Chase. He’s a very fast horse and a slick jumper, but the main thing is our prep has gone well and it’s an exciting problem to have.”
