11 minute read
First Word
Questions racing must face
From ensuring that organised crime can not gain a foothold in racing, to maintaining strong global equine welfare and drug rulings in order to ensure the public’s trust in our sport is retained... the stakes are high
IT WAS A difficult month, on the back of a very difficult year to date... that was the line we were going to use in our NH issue after the Gordon Elliott photo created a pre-Cheltenham Festival week of intense discussion, rumour, conjecture, social media opinion, division and scrutiny.
Sadly, for global racing, it has continued to be a year in which the sport has to ask itself questions regarding the activities of its high-profile participants, as well as the influences they may be facing from certain unwelcome parties.
The press release issued by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board [IHRA] after its referral with Elliott on March 5, 2021 wrote that there were “sinister” aspects to the case and “the Committee are satisfied that the publication of this photograph is part of a concerted attack upon Mr Elliott, the full circumstances of which are unknown.”
One story made it to main stream press written up by Jonathan Buck in a column in the Mail On Sunday on March 7. Buck reported that his sources claimed that the photo was made public by individuals connected to Irish organised crime, that it was produced to ruin Elliott’s career after he refused to train for a Mr John Boylan, a criminal described by Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau (CAB) as “a leading and directing member of an organised crime group based in the West Dublin area specifically involved in armed robbery and the sale and supply of controlled drugs”.
Whether this is correct or not is beyond the scope of this bloodstock publication to discover, but it does focus thoughts on the threat posed by organised crime to sport in general and to horseracing in particular; with subsequent news from France bringing the issues into even further examination.
In mid-March the French-based trainer Andrea Marcialis was one of nine people arraigned before a judicial tribunal to face criminal indictments on grounds of doping horses, organised crime and forgery.
Marcialis was already facing a series of suspensions as both a trainer and owner after being found guilty by France Galop stewards on three counts of doping and two further cases of running a shadow training operation.
The Italian-born trainer was one of 14 people taken to a police station in the Paris suburb of Nanterre following raids led by the Police des Jeux (gaming police), which resulted in the seizure of doping products, €8,800 in cash and the removal of three racehorses.
Racing, with its intrinsic betting product, has always been attractive to criminals wishing to launder and legitimatise illegal earnings.
The sport’s history is full of stories that were once viewed as romantic escapades involving “dodgy” types paying off jockeys and stable lads in order to gain a betting edge, but now, with the global fortunes washing around an interconnected international human drugs business, and with accessible online sports betting availability, and access to dope horses, the stakes are now much higher, and far more dangerous.
The size of the global sports betting market is estimated to be €1.69 trillion per year.
According to the organisation Europol, which is based in The Hague and was set up to support the EU in its fight against terrorism, cyber crime and organised forms of crime, in its publication “The involvement of organised crime groups in sports corruption” the global annual criminal proceeds from betting-related match-fixing is estimated to be €120 million.
Europol wrote: “Sports corruption is a serious crime involving organised crime groups operating transnationally, these gangs are often poly-criminal and can well serve as a platform for organised crime groups to further high-scale money laundering schemes.”
IT GOES ONTO say that “online betting is increasingly used by organised crime groups to manipulate sports competitions and criminals usually target lower-level competitions across different sports, with football and tennis the most targeted sports by criminal networks.”
These large groups target sports in two ways.
“Europol’s analysis has identified links between the individuals involved in the manipulation of sports competitions at a lower level for merely financial gain, and other more sophisticated criminal networks that lay behind the scenes.
Asian criminal syndicates are reported to frequently be behind match-fixing with approximately 65 per cent of the worldwide betting market in Asia, in both regulated and unregulated or illegal sectors (the latter apparently ten times larger than the first).
Football is one of the most targeted sports with its large betting market; corruption in tennis (especially low-tier competitions) is an area of increasing concern.
The report does not mention horseracing and thank God for that; everything must be done by every global racing authority to ensure that such large-scale criminals do not start to see our sport as a suitable vehicle for their needs.
In March 2016, the British Horseracing Authority produced an Integrity Review and it wrote quite frankly “the economics of the sport continue to present challenges at certain levels and exert pressure on participants. There are also still individuals seeking to corrupt the sport’s participants as has been seen in recent Disciplinary Panel cases.
“Sadly, this is inevitable when the sport is so inextricably linked to betting and there is money involved. Therefore the BHA and the sport as a whole must remain vigilant, not be complacent, and ensure that there is an appropriate strategy in place to address such threats.”
Trainers and jockeys at the top of our sport have the financial strength to withstand undesired approaches. But some capable trainers, jockeys, stable lads perhaps having to deal difficult cash burdens, particularly due to “economics of the sport” are likely targets.
The sport has to be resilient in its approach and governance, in all countries, to ensure that horseracing’s participants are not perceived to be easy targets for those wishing to money launder or seek competitive advantage by drugging horses to win or lose.
But sports participants also need protection to ensure that, if they are approached by such types, there is the back up to support them if they refuse to be involved, while on the other hand the punishments if they do get themselves involved are tough.
The threat is real.
SINCE the spring further negative stories have emerged. There has been the sad case of Stephen Mahon, a trainer recently given a four-year ban by the IRHB for four years for the neglect of racehorses in his care.
It is the second occasion that Mahon has been punished regarding unsatisfactory practices with his horses having had his licence suspended for four months and fined €1,000 for the case involving eight-year-old mare Pike Bridge in 2008. As we went to press it was revealed that Mahon is to appeal the most recent ban.
Also in Ireland there
The sport’s history is full of stories that were once viewed as romantic escapades involving “dodgy” types paying off jockeys and stable lads in order to gain a betting edge, but now, with the global fortunes washing around an interconnected international drugs business, and with accessible online sports betting availability, the stakes are much higher and far more dangerous has been the further Jim Bolger comments to the press regarding the possible wide-spread use of performance-enhancing drugs in Irish racing.
In the US, trainer Bob Baffert and owner Zedan Racing Stables are filing a law suit against the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission seeking further testing of their Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit’s urine sample. In the filing, the attorneys write that further testing will provide evidence that the positive test for the corticosteroid betamethasone is linked to an ointment as opposed to an injection i.e. administered for a skin complaint and used for theraputic purposes rather than as a steroid and performance related.
The cases on both sides of the Atlantic reveal the need for a strong consistent and central ruling body to deal with welfare and doping issues.
Racing needs to ensure that it continues to ask itself questions and analyse data regarding training techniques and breeding methods to ensure we are always doing what is actually right for the horse
QUITE PLAINLY the IHRB did not deal strongly enough with Mahon in 2008, and I would argue has failed to do so again. The guy obviously has little understanding, or desire, to look after a horse correctly. He has been given a second chance once already, and should not be allowed to hold a licence again.
As for the US, the Horseracing Integrity and Safety Act recognising the need for a national authority to deal with these drug issues and maintain a consistency across all states has not come a moment too soon.
The use of drugs and race day medications in the US had meant racing had literally a wild west show run by those who have been able to take advantage of the lack of central control, the muddled interstate rules in the US, and the lack of drug use restrictions without a zero tolerance policy as has been enforced in the UK for years.
Trainers and vets in the US range from those who make the most of the lax policies to run horses on medications such as lasix and bute, to highly unsavory types such as the 27 alleged to be involved in and around the Jason Servis doping scandal.
If Baffert were training in the UK, his claim that the betamethasone was introduced to Medina Spirit’s system via a topical cream and not injected, would not make any difference to any drug result and subsequent race outcome. The UK’s zero tolerance regime is just that – no prohibited substance, even if administered for therapeutic reasons or even accidentally via contaimination, should be found in a post-race urine sample.
British trainers are aware of these rulings, and while on occasions are caught out, everyone knows that if their horses test positive to a prohibited substance – however it might have accessed their systems – the race win will be taken away.
This trust is not guaranteed and more certainly needs to be done to ensure it survives and is strengthened.
As reported by Lee Mottershead in the Racing Post, the BHA’s chief executive Julia Harrington was actually asked ahead of the Cheltenham Festival how she was planning to stop the sport going out of existence.
Many have said that the industry needs to be transparent – we need to show the public inside our businesses to reveal how much we love and care for our horses.
In reality, we need to do far more than put a few photos on social media showing stable staff kissing their charges, foals frolicking in fields or jockeys riding into the sunset.
Detailed on course and off-course fatality and injury data needs to be analysed and published, there needs to be more scientific evaluation of training techniques and methods; are we actually training horses well?
We train horses to win races, and to win races they need to be on good terms with themselves, but do we really know that we are doing best for them as intrinsically individuals?
We train horses to win races, and to win races they need to be on good terms with themselves, but do we really know that we are doing best for them....
Horses are trained in a multitude of different ways, what actually is best?
We need a far greater examination and understanding as to how horses grow and are produced on stud farms. We need to ensure that everything is done from the birth to strengthen bone structure so that our horses as future athletes are given the best chances of coping with the rigors of training.
All needs greater investigation and publication, whether we like the answers or not. At least we will then have a database from which to build.
The equine wellbeing issue is developing into a broader question as to whether we actually have a right to use a horse for sport.
I believe that we gain much from horseracing that is beneficial to the human experience – it is sociable, it is active, it is outdoors, it is encompassing, it offers competitive action even if human participants are not athletic themselves, builds bonds between humans and humans, between animal and human, it fosters understanding, trust, creativity and, quite frankly, can lead to love.
Humans gain many benefits from interaction with equines and it is up to us all to maintain the public trust that allows us all to put a saddle on a horse’s back
The physical and mental benefits, as well as the social skills, children gain from having a pony, or going to a riding school, becoming competitive on that pony, riding around the countryside, or just from enthusiastically following the sport and having jockeys as sporting heros, is immeasurable.
The same applies for disadvantaged adults, people or children with learning difficulties or who have suffered tragedy in their lives.
If racing, in particular NH racing, has an uncertain future and there can’t be a legitimate argument for using the horse in the sport, then by extension it follows that any level of sports horse competition, or in fact riding at all, should not exist.
Horses are asked to do a job for us whenever we put a saddle on that broad hairy back.
We have to ensure that the legitimate arguments to use the horse to expand the richness of our lives are not diminished by our industry itself. The public trust we are given to race horses can not be taken for granted.
