Willie Mullins fined and horse disqualified from Cheltenham race after failed doping test
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Star trainer Willie Mullins has been fined and one of his horses disqualified from a Cheltenham race after it was found to have had a banned substance in its system.
Final Demand finished second in the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase at Cheltenham this March, behind stablemate Kitzbuhel.
But it has now been stripped off that results after an independent British Horseracing Authority disciplinary panel ruled it had mepivacaine, a local anaesthetic commonly used to treat horses, in its system.
The panel released its finding on Monday following a fast-track referral for admitted rule breaches, and said: “Contrary to Rule (K)2.2, Final Demand ran in the Grade One event at the Festival on March 11 with a Category B Prohibited Substance (mepivacaine) in its body”.
It said that Mullins had breached Rule (J)24.2 having “failed to declare use of mepivacaine on the horse in its medical declaration forms submitted prior to the race”, in which the seven-year-old was beaten three-quarters of a length by Kitzbuhel.
The panel said it was a low dose and it had entered the horse’s system close to the time the test was taken, with the panel unable to state how it had happened.
Mullins has been fined £1,100.
Sarah Crowther KC, judicial panel chair, said that the “BHA and Mr Mullins have agreed the proposed sanctions, which in my judgment are appropriate having regard to the Table of Penalties”.
Crowther added: “I am also satisfied that the culpability is low. There is no suggestion that Mr Mullins or any of his staff knew of any administration of mepivacaine, and the BHA accepts that reasonable precautions were in place.”
However the investigation also discovered that CCTV footage of a yard where the horse was kept had been “misplaced”, with Cheltenham fined £5,000 for that rule breach as racecourses are required to keep such footage.
Crowther said the importance of that footage should not be “overstated” as the horse had been moved to a different yard at the time it received the dose, with that footage available to the panel and reviewed.
Additional reporting by PA
