Mullins on tenterhooks over Be My Royal test
Contaminated feed is believed to be the cause of the problem that has affected stables in both Ireland and Britain.
Mullins’s anxiety is heightened by the fact that another of his horses, One Night Out, tested positive for the banned substance after winning at Fairyhouse 24 hours after Be My Royal had triumphed at Newbury a fortnight ago.
The results of routine dope tests in Britain “take 10 to 14 days” to be announced according to John Maxse, the spokesman for the Jockey Club. “Nothing has come out of the test on Be My Royal at the moment,” Maxse said yesterday afternoon.
Mullins said: “I’ve heard absolutely nothing, good bad or indifferent. There are lots of rumours but no one has made any contact. I’m going to be sweating for the next few days.”
Concern over the outbreak of positive tests is growing on both sides of the Irish Sea. The Turf Club and Jockey Club have been moved to issue a joint statement saying they were “gravely concerned that in recent days over 20 samples in Ireland and Britain have screened positive for morphine, which is a prohibited substance”.
This week Red Mills, the animal feed manufacturer based at Goresbridge, Co Kilkenny, called on the racing industry to investigate how “trace amounts of morphine have suddenly appeared in urine samples taken from winning horses at racetracks in Ireland and the UK over the past month”.
On Thursday, the Association of Irish Racehorse Owners petitioned the Turf Club to introduce a special rule to avoid the automatic disqualification of those horses that have tested positive for morphine.
Mullins, who held a think tank with colleagues during racing at Gowran Park on Thursday, said he hoped there would be discussions with the Turf Club early next week.
“We swapped information about what products we’re using and also about what paths might be open to us. We’re gathering information about contamination from different racing centres around the world, and we’re talking to our English colleagues as well,” Mullins said.
“We’re not pointing fingers anywhere yet. “Next week, once we have got more information over the weekend, our first plan of action would probably be to meet with the governing bodies.”
Rupert Arnold, the chief executive of Britain’s National Trainers’ Federation, confirmed yesterday that at least six of his members were implicated in morphine cases.
“I personally am aware of six British trainers who have eight or nine horses between them that either the first sample has tested positive or they have been screened positive,” Arnold said. “I don’t believe the results of tests on any second samples have come back yet.
“Inevitably anything that jeopardises the hard earned successes of trainers and owners is of huge concern. After it has been established what the source is then it would just as well for everyone to learn some lessons from what has happened and review policy if the science of this particular incident deems it necessary.”
