Mullins to appeal Royal disqualification
The trainer's decision came after consultation with his legal team during the afternoon after the Jockey Club's disciplinary panel decided to disqualify the horse following a two-day hearing in London.
Mullins was in attendance at Portman Square to hear the fate of his charge, 14 months after the Irish gelding's shock victory in the Newbury showpiece.
Afterwards, he revealed some of the specifics of the case.
"I was very surprised and concerned that two out of three members of the disciplinary panel ended up giving evidence at their own hearing," Mullins said.
"However, I am pleased that it was confirmed during the course of the hearing that the Jockey Club had introduced a new cut-off point of 15 nanograms per millilitre last March following the outbreak of morphine contamination.
"I was also pleased that Dr Peter Webbon, the Jockey Club's veterinary director, confirmed that any concentration of up to 15 nanograms could have no effect upon the performance of a horse.
"In these circumstances, it was bitterly disappointing that my offer to have the sample which still exists tested again under the new guidelines was rejected out of hand.
"The Jockey Club have already been told of our intention to appeal."
The full details of the panel's decision will be made available next week and Mullins has seven days from that day to take the case to the Jockey Club's independent appeal board.
Should that course of action fail, he has indicated that he would want to take the matter to the courts.
John Maxse, the Jockey Club's director of public relations, said that he was unable to respond to Mullins' statement.
"Until I have discussed the situation with the Jockey Club's legal team, I am not well enough briefed to comment on the specific matters he is referring to," Maxse said.
However, it is believed that Mullins' comments over the make-up of the disciplinary panel refer to the fact that two of its three members yesterday - Andrew Merriam and Lord Halifax are also members of the Jockey Club's regulatory board.
In a bitter twist to the success, Be My Royal suffered a career-ending injury and has not raced since.
The gelding failed a post-race drugs test for morphine, the source of which was a contaminated food supply.
There was a glut of morphine positives around the time of Be My Royal's victory and the common denominator in most of them was a batch of feed supplied by Connolly's Red Mills.
The Newbury event is the highest-profile race involved.
Between November 2002 and February 2003, 37 horses produced positive tests, of which 16 were winners.
So far, eight cases have been heard by the disciplinary panel. All the horses have been disqualified and fines for trainers waived after the panel was satisfied in each case that the source of the substance was a batch of 'Connolly's Red Mills 14% Racehorse Cubes', which were being used in the relevant yards at the time.
In common with the cases already heard, Mullins was not fined. He was, however, ordered to pay legal costs of £5,000.
"It is unusual for an application of this type to be made by the Jockey Club, but on top of the cost of having counsel represent us, the Jockey Club has had to take extensive legal advice and additional work," Maxse explained. "So the order was considered appropriate in this case."
One of jumps racing's biggest prizes now goes to the original runner-up, Gingembre, trained by Lavinia Taylor.
Meanwhile, Ferdy Murphy is to suspend operations at his Middleham stable for the next fortnight because of an illness which has affected his recent runners, including Tote Cheltenham Gold Cup hope Truckers Tavern.
Murphy will not be making any more entries for at least two weeks to give his team, who have been inoculated to combat the problem, plenty of time to recover. He is hopeful horses like Truckers Tavern will be back in time for the Festival.
Talks aimed at securing coverage of the Martell Cognac Grand National on terrestrial TV are to be held following Thursday's announcement that broadcaster attheraces are terminating their contract with 49 of Britain's racecourses.
Attheraces announced that their 10-year media rights deal, worth £307million, will come to an end after a 60-day notice period on March 29, which means the Grand National at Aintree on April 3 will be without a contracted terrestrial broadcaster.
The BBC's flagship coverage of the great race is not secure as all terrestrial coverage was sub-licensed from attheraces to Channel 4 and the BBC, with Aintree one of seven courses contracted to the Corporation.
Attheraces is made up of a consortium of Arena Leisure, BSkyB and Channel 4.
