Unsatisfactory outcome to Final Demand’s prohibited substance case

The news last week that Final Demand had been disqualified from second place in the Grade 1 Brown Advisory Novices Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in March for failing a drug test is a big story.

Horses fail post-race drug tests on a fairly regular basis, but it is rare for it to involve such a high profile horse representing one of the sport's most successful ever trainers in a major race at the Cheltenham Festival.

By any standards Willie Mullins has an exemplary record in this regard, which I suppose stems from himself and his team's meticulous attention to detail.

Reading the published result of the British Horseracing Authority's (BHA) Judicial Panel enquiry into the circumstances that led to Final Demand testing positive for mepivacaine gives an indication of the lengths Mullins and his team go to to protect their horses from cross-contamination and/or the inadvertent administering of medicines which could result in a runner testing positive for a prohibited substance.

Besides standard signage and regular notices to staff to be vigilant when it comes to cross-contamination, we are told his staff are even prohibited from “bringing coffee cups and energy drinks onto the yard.”

Other precautions include “disinfecting of tack and use of separate tack, which is cleaned weekly, changing and cleaning of water and feeding pots and buckets on a daily basis, which is supported by daily text message reminders, the employment of Dr Virginie Bascop as the sole person administering medication and the keeping of medication offsite.”

Even more precautions are put in place when the horses travel to the races “including the travelling team not carrying medications and the Horse having a muzzle placed to ensure that he did not eat any bedding or other materials prior to the Race. The muzzles were cleaned after each use.”

Taking all of these precautions into account it seems improbable that Final Demand could come into contact with a drug called mepivacaine during the three days he was stabled at Cheltenham racecourse without any staff from Mullins' team noticing it, but that is apparently what happened.

Mepivacaine is a local anaesthetic used to quickly numb an area. Dentists use it all the time. It acts within seconds and the effects last for just a few hours.

According to expert veterinary analysis provided by the BHA's own Medication Control and Anti-doping manager, the levels of mepivacaine detected in Final Demand's samples indicate that the horse was exposed to the drug within 10 - 24 hours of his race at Cheltenham.

So, in short, neither the BHA nor Willie Mullins and his team have any idea how Final Demand came into contact with this drug during his stay at Cheltenham, but he definitely did and has now been disqualified from the Cheltenham race and Mullins had been fined a total of £1,100. Case closed.

The details of the investigation expose a number of contributing factors - delays, errors and mishaps - that led to this most unsatisfactory conclusion.

The case also shines a light on the inner workings of Willie Mullins' operation and, if all the scientific evidence is accurate, an incredible coincidence.

After Final Demand finished second at Cheltenham on 11th March blood and urine samples were taken for Analysis.

On 26th March, 15 days after Final Demand competed at Cheltenham, the BHA were informed of the adverse analytic finding in the blood sample.

Willie Mullins, as is the right of any trainer, elected to have the B-sample tested. This also came back with a positive result on 10th April.

The very same day, 10th April, the BHA dispatched a member of their team to Cheltenham Racecourse to retrieve CCTV footage “for the ‘Irish Yard' where the BHA had been informed that Final Demand was stabled prior to his run.”

On 21st April the BHA received a memory stick with the requested CCTV footage.

It wasn't until 8th May that they looked at the footage and realised that they had images from the wrong stable yard. Final Demand had only moved across to the Irish Yard on the morning of the race, having been stabled in the Charles Turner yard from 8th - 11th March.

On 11th May an email was sent to Cheltenham requesting the missing footage.

It turned out that this CCTV footage was in the possession of a third-party supplier and by the time Cheltenham Racecourse and the BHA finally got hold of him, 2nd July, he had misplaced the hard drive containing the vital footage that could have potentially revealed exactly how Final Demand tested positive for mepivacaine.

The urine sample taken from Final Demand was not tested at the same time as the blood sample. It was 14th May before that also came back positive for mepivacaine.

The urine sample crucially showed the presence of 3-hydroxymepivacaine which indicates that Final Demand was exposed to the drug shortly (within 24 hours) before the race.

It would have been useful to the investigation if the urine sample had been tested sooner.

It wasn't until 17th July, over two months after the BHA had all of the urine and blood results in their possession, when the BHA's own expert, Dr Tyler, prepared a report outlining the short window during which the horse most likely came into contact with mepivacaine.

The BHA's investigating team should have been aware much sooner that the horse came into contact with the drug while he was stabled for three days at Cheltenham Racecourse.

This would have allowed them to focus solely on that timeline rather than simultaneously investigating the potential exposure to the drug while the horse was still in Ireland. That turned out to be a red herring.

It probably explains the lax nature of the CCTV part of the investigation. No need to worry about Cheltenham CCTV footage when the horse was given the drug before he arrived in England.

Another peculiar aspect to the investigation was that the BHA didn't act immediately when they were informed on 26th March that there was an adverse analytic finding from a sample taken from Final Demand after the Cheltenham race.

It took five days before Willie Mullins was told of the positive result and even then it wasn't the BHA who informed him. He received a visit from the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board's (IHRB) Chief Medical Officer, Dr Lynn Hillyer.

Considering the race in question, which took place at Cheltenham, is under the BHA's jurisdiction and they were the ones to carry out the subsequent investigation I cannot see why this occurred. Or why it took five days to happen.

I also find an element of the evidence that Dr Hillyer gave to the BHA Judicial Panel quite unusual. She said “she had a conversation with Mr Mullins in which he was visibly shocked by the finding.”

I'm sure he was, but in all my years covering IHRB Referrals and Appeals I cannot recall another instance where Dr Hillyer has ever mentioned the demeanour of a trainer when informed that a horse in their care had tested positive for a prohibited substance.

The BHA Judicial Panel appear to have considered this observation to have been of particular significance as they included it in their written summary of the case.

According to Dr Hillyer the trainer “was unable to think of any occasion when the Horse may have come into contact with mepivacaine,” but subsequent to that conversation the IHRB's Chief Medical Officer was informed by Willie Mullins' Private Veterinary Practitioner, Dr Virginie Bascop, that Final Demand did in fact receive the drug eight days before he raced at Cheltenham.

Dr Lynn Hillyer of the IHRB is an expert in prohibited substances and their withdrawal periods and it would be reasonable to assume that she would have also known that the therapeutic dose of mepivacaine administered to Final Demand on 3rd March at Closutton could not have been responsible for the adverse findings from samples taken on 11th March at Cheltenham.

The IHRB's published detection time for mepivacaine is the same as the BHA's at 72 hours and these detection times purposely err on the side of caution.

I wasn't aware that Willie Mullins had a Private Veterinary Practitioner attached to his yard, but I suppose it makes perfect sense for such a big operation. It must be a highly coveted position for those specialising in equine veterinary.

With that in mind, it was surprising to me that when Final Demand picked up a soft tissue wound in a field at Closutton that Dr Bascop didn't stitch the wound herself. Suturing is a basic procedure that all vets are trained to do.

Instead a Veterinary Surgeon was dispatched from Anglesey Lodge Veterinary Hospital in Co. Kildare. That is a 45 minute drive away and seems like an unnecessary expense for a yard that is employing their own veterinary practitioner.

In any case, I would imagine that an incident of this nature, a week before Cheltenham for a high-profile contender, would have required informing Willie Mullins and other key personnel at the yard and that all parties involved would have been acutely aware that any medication administered during the procedure had the potential to scupper the horse's chances of running at Cheltenham eight days later.

Bizarrely, Dr Bascop spoke to the vet from Anglesey Lodge after the horse had been stitched, but the medication administered to the horse never came up in that conversation and no one in Closutton seems to have been aware at any stage prior to the Cheltenham race that the horse had received mepivacaine.

Two Vets talking about a horse getting stitches to his jaw and medication was never mentioned.

When you think about Final Demand having his jaw stitched eight days before his big race, it was extremely fortunate that he was still able to be ridden with a bit and bridle. Depending on exactly where the stitches were, it could have been very painful for him to have his mouth pulled from the bit. Dr Bascop told the BHA investigators that there was still discharge coming from the wound on the day he raced at Cheltenham.

According to the expert analysis that formed part of the BHA investigation, the mepivacaine given to FInal Demand on the 3rd March in Closutton could not have been responsible for the level of the drug found in samples taken on 11th March in Cheltenham. It was almost certainly the result of a second separate exposure to the drug.

All told there must be literally thousands of different ointments, lotions and potions that make up the list of substances which are prohibited for horses competing in races.

Everything from anabolic steroids, peptides, blood manipulators, sedatives, tranquilizers, hypnotics, local anaesthetics and anti-inflamatories, but astonishingly the drug detected in Final Demand's samples on the day he raced at Cheltenham is the exact same drug that was administered to him eight days earlier.

That is one hell of a coincidence.

Even more so considering mepivacaine is not some topical cream or ointment that might be hanging around the bottom of stable kit bags unbeknownst to anyone.

The level of the fine given to Willie Mullins was arrived at because the Judicial Panel determined this was a low level breach of Rule (K) 2.2.

If the positive result for mepivacaine had been as a consequence of the dose of the drug the horse received eight days before running at Cheltenham, it would in all likelihood have moved the offence into a medium culpability category breach of Rule (K) 2.2 and this could have resulted in the Champion trainer having his licence withdrawn for a period.

Considering how high the stakes were in this case I find it particularly worrying that there were so many issues associated with the investigation.