Is Racing's Drug Testing Focused on the Right Problems?

Racing experts have questioned the efficiency of drug testing in the sport after John & Thady Gosden were cleared of any wrongdoing but fined £3,000 after two of their horses tested positive for ketamine last year.

An employee admitted to recreational use of the substance, which led to cross-contamination of Zilfee and Morrophore, who both tested positive post-race for the banned substance.

Hair samples from four further horses also tested positive for ketamine.

It comes after a very similar incident in 2020 when John Gosden was fined £500 and cleared of any wrongdoing.

Then, the contamination came from another staff member who admitted to being an occasional user of the drug.

He used a credit card on the day of the race, which transferred ketamine to his hands and then to the horse.

’Ridiculous Issue’

Speaking on this week’s Irish Angle podcast, irishracing.com editor, Vincent Finegan, called it a “ridiculous issue for the industry”.

"If we take all that on face value, this is a ridiculous issue for the industry, isn't it? If you've got people all through society taking drugs like this, and if they only have to come in contact with a horse at any stage, the horse will test positive.”

Fellow contributor Emma Nagle added: "It's just bizarre, really. To be honest, I don't think I've ever seen ketamine used [on a horse]. To think that a horse could get contaminated so easily is worrying.

“In that first case, it was particularly bizarre to think that a horse can get contaminated from residue on his fingers after using a credit card. It’s mind-boggling, really."

Calls For Change

Neither case resulted in any change in performance in the horses that tested positive with one involved winning their race.

That led to Vincent Finegan questioning whether the current process is fit for purpose.

"If they're using a lot of the resources on very minor cases, it's obviously leaving fewer resources available for the bigger cases.

"If there is a problem, why not just go and do a hair follicle test on every single racehorse in Ireland?

“Surely we could do that over a six-month period, and then we [would] know for definite… rather than taking all of these one at a time and it never gets us a clear answer.”

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