THE SUNSHINE COAST NEWSPAPER COLUMN - RACING'S NATURAL JUSTICE SYSTEM NEEDS AN OVERHAUL

By Graham Potter | Sunday, April 28, 2013

Graham Potter writes a weekly column for the Sunshine Coast daily. Due to demand from those having trouble accessing the paper these columns are now also published on HRO courtesy of the Sunshine Coast daily

It was huge news in world racing this week.

Mahmood Al Zarooni, one of the trainers for the mighty Godolphin racing outfit, declared he ‘didn’t realise’ that some of the substances he had been administering to fifteen horses in his care in Britain were on the prohibitive substance list.

Eleven Al Zarooni-trained horses tested positive for anabolic steroids while the trainer volunteered that another four horses, who had not been tested, received the same treatment.

Once outed, Al Zarooni was friendless. Godolphin’s Racing Manager talked about, ‘an isolated incident by a reckless person who has shown no respect for horse racing,’ and that the Sheik, ‘was appalled by Al Zarooni’s actions.’

If ‘didn’t realise’ was Al Zarooni’s best argument, it counted for nothing.

Action was swift and decisive. The British Racing Authority imposed an eight year ban on the trainer while all fifteen horses involved were summarily banned for six months.

Queries have been raised in the British press about ‘nagging questions as to why the whole process was conducted with such haste’. The blood tests were carried out on April 9. The results of those tests announced on April 22 and a verdict reached seventy-two hours later!

Whether that timeframe was motivated by not wanting to draw out an unsavoury matter indirectly involving Sheik Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai, is conjecture.

The Sheik has approximately four hundred horses in Britain and employs a staff of hundreds in various capacities and it was arguably prudent to deal with the matter as an absolute priority.

Doubtless the British press will pursue that argument about their racing authorities’ procedure, speed and effectiveness to the bitter end.

I think we should do that here in Australia as well, but my argument would be the reverse of the stand taken by the British Press. I would want to know why these matters generally take so long to adjudicate here at home.

The Chris Waller case in Sydney did reach an unusually swift conclusion this week. In spite of horses returning positive swabs, Waller was cleared of any wrong-doing as stewards determined the leading trainer did not have a case to answer over the feed contamination issue which was identified as the source of the problem.

While that case might have been decided in almost record time, the handling of that matter was the exception rather than the rule.

I don’t have space here to cement my argument by posting all the examples available of authorities and participants dragging their heels in cases but, suffice to say, sometimes when an order is finally handed down it has taken so long to do so you have all but forgotten about the original incident.

That track record only belittles the effort of those seriously trying to improve the profile of the industry … and we all know that needs to be improved.

So, while there will be much debate to follow in terms of the different lists of prohibitive substances in different countries; the legal use of certain steroids while the horse is out of competition, which is allowed in some racing precincts, such as Australia and Dubai, and not in others; what drugs can horses have in their system in which countries … perhaps this would also be a good time to revisit what the term ‘natural justice’ is meant to mean.

I’m all for natural justice by the way, but if racing cannot find a way to complete the natural justice cycle a whole lot quicker than it has done in so many cases perpetrators will continue to play the system to their own advantage and to racing’s detriment.

Possibly an increase in penalties for those ‘appeal happy’ combatants who are ultimately found guilty of their charge would act as some deterrent to further action and thus help speed up the system by lowering the number of ‘pending’ case files.

The bottom line is … there has got to be a better way.

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