Trainer Philip Fenton has been disqualified from holding a trainer’s licence for three years at a hearing of the Turf Club’s Referrals Committee.
Fenton was last month found guilty in the district court of eight charges of possessing banned animal medicines, including anabolic steroids, at his Co. Tipperary stables, and was penalised a total of €10,200.
The Turf Club immediately conducted their own investigation of a case that began with a Department of Agriculture inspection of Fenton’s yard in January of 2012 and racing’s regulatory body has imposed a three year disqualification on Fenton.
The multiple Grade One-winning trainer, and former champion amateur jockey, appeared before the Referrals Committee this afternoon and admitted breaching the rules of racing.
Disqualification primarily involves not being allowed enter, train or ride a horse at a race meeting and can prevent a person being granted entry to a race meeting. Application to an authority, however, can allow a disqualified person to be employed in a racing yard.
Fenton’s disqualification period from training horses will begin from midnight on Friday, November 28th. On March 1st next year he will be disqualified entirely from any horseracing environment.
Fenton’s solicitor pleaded for a financial punishment, rather than disqualification, but a Turf Club panel felt the severity of the offence was of sufficient gravity to hand out a three-year suspension.
Head of the panel Tony Hunt said Fenton would still have the right to appeal.
Fenton’s case has dogged racing throughout the year, especially dominating the build-up to last March’s Cheltenham festival after the first of a sequence of court appearances in February.
His three-year disqualification is a year less than jockey Eddie O’Connell received in 2013 for his role in the ‘Yachvili’ corruption case when North of Ireland based businessman, Robert Martin, the owner of Yachvili, was also ‘warned-off’ for 10 years, the most severe penalty ever imposed by the Turf Club.
The regulatory body acted after Fenton was convicted last month on eight charges of possessing banned animal remedies, including anabolic steroids. He was fined €1,000 on six of the charges with the two remaining charges taken into consideration and ordered to pay €4,200 in costs and expenses.
During the case it was revealed that Department of Agriculture inspectors found substances including a 1kg tub of the steroid Nitrotain and a smaller amount of Ilium stanablic which contains stanozolol. They were found hidden under a horse blanket near Fenton’s medicine store, in a cardboard box addressed to the trainer at his stable near Carrick-On-Suir.
In evidence a department of Agriculture vet said the tub of Nitrotain contained enough of the steroid to provide “250 doses.”
Fenton secured the last high-profile success of his career when Last Instalment won February’s Hennessy Gold Cup at Leopardstown and enjoyed a Cheltenham festival victory with Dunguib in 2009.
Last Instalment’s owner, Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary, who races under the Gigginstown House Stud banner, removed the horses he had in training with Fenton after his court conviction last month having stood by the 49 year old prior to that.
