What's Another Year

It's the prerogative of youth to be young and foolish. Some of us don't even need to be young. And for a lot of people the impulse to be foolish with drugs contains little direct impact on anyone but themselves. But jockeys aren't a lot of people. Being under the influence of drugs isn't just foolish on the back of a racehorse, it is dangerous. That this is obvious and the rate of positive tests for cocaine among riders is increasing appears like rank irresponsibility rather than foolishness.

Last week's bans for apprentice jockey Damian Melia and amateur rider Conor Murphy, as well as confirmation a third person has tested positive for cocaine with their case pending, brings to five the number of positive tests for the Class A drug in 2018 alone. There have been a total of 13 positive tests for cocaine in the last four years. In the same period there have been no positives for alcohol.

At the end of 2017 the then Turf Club doubled the entry point suspension for positive cocaine tests to four years. This was supposed to prove a greater deterrent. It clearly hasn't worked. On the back of the latest bans the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Authority is introducing a new starting point penalty of five years. In the circumstances it's tempting to ask what's another year?

Much more telling perhaps is the IHRB intention to impose a minimum 18 months before someone can reapply for their licence. The indication is this will be applied in all but the most exceptional circumstances. And a reapplication after 18 months will only be entertained if an individual has jumped through all the various hoops set up by the IHRB's medical team.

A year and a half is a significant chunk out of any riding career: a five year absence effectively ends it.

In Britain the current penalty for testing positive for cocaine is six months as was famously the case with Frankie Dettori in 2012. Only three positive tests in three years would bring a rider close to a five year ban. That's the sort of penalty employed for notably serious breaches of the rules. Philip Fenton got a three year disqualification after being guilty of possessing anabolic steroids.

It's in such a context that the IHRB's greater penalty plans have provoked a certain unease in some quarters. There is an attitude that cocaine use is rampant generally and the rate of positive tests among jockeys for that drug merely reflects a generational shift in how young people choose to let their hair down.

There is ample evidence of that wherever you go in Ireland. Racing is no different. In fact racing could be said to be more prone to drug use.

Cocaine gives an immediate high, is relatively cheap, goes through the system quickly and is easy to get. In a sport with notably high instances of depression and other mental health issues, not to mention a constant struggle with weight, it's easy to see why jockeys in particular might resort to a temporary pick-me-up sometimes.

However there's a danger in appearing way too cool for school when it comes to such drug use, or in portraying lengthy bans as draconian in comparison to, say, doping horses. Placing recreational drug use within the jockey's room in a broader social context can also result in people simply throwing their hands in the air.

Race riding is too dangerous for such indulgence. It always has been, even in the supposed good old days when stories of riders going out drunk as skunks were indulged and even cultivated. This isn't some desk-bound hungover computer jock coming down in their own sweet time: these are athletes in an occupation where injury or worse is always just a stride away.

It is arrogant to not only endanger yourself but also your colleagues in what is already a spectacularly perilous job, not to mention compromising your professional responsibilities to connections. Maybe it's the arrogance of youth but that doesn't stop it being unacceptable.

It generally goes against this corner's grain to clamber onto any kind of high horse in terms of individual behaviour. But jockeys perform a very specific role which requires having their wits about them. That presumes both professionalism and fundamental respect for the responsibilities they hold, most importantly of all towards their colleagues.

It probably won't make much difference if the entry point suspension is five years rather than four. However a minimum eighteen month ban, if enforced, might concentrate some minds if their drug use is purely social. And for those whose use is more pathological it can be argued that losing their licence for a year and half deserves to be lower down their list of urgent priorities anyway.

Thanks to the likes of the former IHRB medical officer, Dr Adrian McGoldrick, programmes are in place for those who are really in trouble with drugs, and the mental health issues that often accompany such problems. That's as it should be. People in real trouble need real help.

But that can't stop the message being got across that riding with prohibited substances in your system, never mind illegal ones, is unacceptable.

From now on, with the threat of an immediate 18 month suspension in the offing, jockeys can't plead ignorance if they fail to live up to their responsibilities by indulging themselves. Such responsibility is the flip side of the privilege involved in doing something that most everyone else can only dream of in terms of fulfilment, excitement and public admiration.

The worry is that the threat of detection has been there for some time already and clearly had no impact. Nevertheless the one upside to all this is the effectiveness of the drug regime in identifying positive tests. Maybe these latest cases will be a reminder that riding racehorses is a singular pursuit that imposes responsibilities as well as privileges, no matter how old you are.

There has been lots of talk about partnership and amalgamation surrounding news of the Group One winning trainer Patrick Prendergast going to work for John Oxx and bringing most of his horses with him. It in turn provoked plenty comment about how partnerships on the lines of the Australian model could be a way to go here.

Without ever wishing to dampen speculative excitement, but reading things purely on face value, it all seemed a rather feverish relating of a pretty straightforward tale. Prendergast won't renew his licence next month so is going to work for Oxx and most of the horses he had in his yard are going with him.

That doesn't sound like any kind of radical new concept. It sounds like a reasonable solution to a set of circumstances that suits both parties. Oxx made it clear that he is the trainer, his is the name on the door, and that Prendergast will be working for him. Interpreting it any other way but as Oxx being the trainer, and Prendergast an employee, looks a stretch.

This idea of training partnerships being publicly recognised feels a rather indulgent exercise anyway. There are plenty of training partnerships in racing here already. People just don't seem to feel the need to have their ego massaged publicly by having their name on the race-card. And if that isn't exactly transparent Irish racing has plenty more pressing transparency issues than that.

There is also the more mundane consideration of how having more than one name on a licence can muddy waters even further when it comes to carrying the liability can. Making something stick is already a huge regulatory battle. How much more difficult might it be with more than one name to pursue and blame being passed between them like a particularly smelly parcel.