Irish Turf Club will act quickly over Philip Fenton steroids case

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/oct/24/irish-turf-club-philip-fenton-steroids-case

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Denis Egan, the chief executive of the Irish Turf Club, said on Friday that the sport’s regulator in Ireland will act “as quickly as is humanely possible” to convene a disciplinary hearing into the case of trainer Philip Fenton, who was convicted on Thursday of possessing illegal animal remedies including anabolic steroids.

Fenton was found to have had two steroids at his stable in Co Tipperary when investigators from Ireland’s department of agriculture conducted a raid in January 2012. The raid uncovered 1kg of Nitrotain, enough for 250 doses of the powerful performance-enhancing drug, and a much smaller quantity of Ilium Stanabolic, which contains the steroid stanozolol.

The case took nearly three years to come to court, but the Turf Club’s disciplinary process seems likely to be much more accelerated, with Fenton expected to be interviewed by the Club’s security officials next Friday.

“We are going to get this done as quickly as is humanly possible to get it done and get it in front of the referrals committee [the equivalent of the British Horseracing Authority’s disciplinary panel],” Egan said. “We’ll do everything that we can, and I would be very, very disappointed if we’re talking about anything more than weeks. Obviously we will have to give everyone we want to interview notice of that, and at this stage today we have hand-delivered letters to anybody we want to speak to.

“We’ve put them on notice that we want to talk to them next Friday and that’s the plan, our investigators will talk to them next Friday if they are available. We are proceeding full steam ahead.”

Nitrotain is a substance of particular concern to racing jurisdictions throughout the world, since it is applied orally via a paste rather than an injection, acts rapidly to build muscle mass and stamina, and is excreted from the horse’s body in no more than a few days. It was one of the substances used by Mahmood al-Zarooni during the Godolphin doping scandal at Moulton Paddocks in Newmarket last spring.

“It was a very significant quantity of Nitrotain that was found,” Egan said. “It’s easily obtainable for anybody anywhere, which is very worrying from everybody’s point of view, and it’s not just Nitrotain, it’s other substances as well that can be bought online. It is a problem.”

It was reported on Thursday night that the powerful Gigginstown Stud had removed three horses – Desertmore Stream, Band Of Blood and Real Steel –from Fenton’s yard.

At Doncaster on Friday, two potential Oaks fillies for next season were on display as John Gosden’s Star Of Seville and Beautiful Romance, who is trained for Godolphin by Saeed bin Suroor, both recorded impressive victories in the two divisions of the card’s one-mile maiden.

Star Of Seville stepped up from a third-place finish on her debut to pass the post six lengths clear of her rivals, despite being eased down by William Buick on the run to the line. She can be backed at 25-1 for the Oaks.

“This was a nice way to end the year for her, we’ll put her away now and look forward to next season,” Buick said. “She went very well in the ground and she came on a lot for her first run at Leicester.

“I didn’t really want to go out and make the running, but there wasn’t anything leading me. I watched the replay and she’s killed the race three and a half [furlongs] down.”

Beautiful Romance, a daughter of the Derby winner New Approach, came home nine lengths clear and is a 33-1 chance for the Oaks. “She’s a lovely filly,” Freddie Tylicki, the winning jockey, said. “[The trainer] was very keen on her and told me she’s been working very well. She handled the ground beautifully, she ticks a lot of the boxes and she’s a nice prospect for next year.”

Tony McCoy will return to the saddle at Chepstow on Saturday afternoon after sitting out 10 days due to the effects of a crashing fall at Worcester earlier this month.

The champion jockey returns on the potentially exciting Son Du Berlais in the Totepool Persian War Novice Hurdle for Nicky Henderson. “Nicky is very happy with him,” Frank Berry, racing manager to the gelding’s owner JP McManus, said on Friday . “He’s come out of the [Newton Abbot] race well and he’s looking forward to running him.”