THAT 2020 MAGIC MILLIONS GUINEAS RESULT - FOUR YEARS ON AND THE LEGAL FIGHT STILL CONTINUES

By Graham Potter | Wednesday, January 10, 2024

Shock ... horror ... not really, although it does take a bit of getting your head around the fact that Saturday’s 2024 Magic Millions Three-Year-Old Guineas will be run and won before the result of the 2020 edition of the race is finalised.

Alligator Blood won the 2020 Guineas on the track, was subsequently disqualified, was reinstated ... that reinstatement was then appealed and so all of the legalities went on, now covering four years ... with who knows how much in costs for both the connections of Alligator Blood and the Queensland Racing Integrity Commission (QRIC).

February 7 has now been set for the case to resume. Maybe, just maybe, that will bring closing arguments with a final ruling to follow to, at last, bring the matter of the race result to rest.

That’s the hope, but not something you would bet on.

That stand-off was brought back into racing’s attention field in the middle of Magic Millions week for the most bizarre reason courtesy of, as revealed on Racenet, an affidavit submitted by the Head of the Queensland Racing Integrity Commission's Racing Science Centre.

For some reason, there had apparently been some contention that the case could be heard again right from the start, but that would have involved re-testing samples taken from Alligator Blood on race-day ... an A sample and a (reserve) B sample ... but the contents of the affidavit would appear to have removed that option.

The relevant Racenet article quotes directly from the affidavit, which states, ‘Unfortunately, in around late February to early March 2022 there was a severe weather event that affected Brisbane, and the subsequent flooding caused an extended power outage at the RSC.

‘The backup generator then ran out of fuel sometime on either February 27, or in the early hours of February 28 of February 2022, and was not restarted for several days. This complete power loss affected all the electronic devices in the building, including the cold room which contained stored sample 473705 (Alligator Blood's A-sample).

‘On March 1, 2022, I undertook a damage assessment and I recall that the temperature in the cold room area felt as warm as the rest of the (at that time un-airconditioned) building and I also observed that the RSC's stored samples had appeared to have thawed out.

‘The cold room was not returned to the target temperature until the evening of the 4th of March 2022, at the earliest.

‘Because of the power outage … it is unlikely that the RSC's remaining portion of sample 473705 could be reliably analysed now, as the combined effects of thawing and subsequent refreezing, along with the exposure to laboratory temperatures exceeding 20 degrees Celsius for days, would very likely have led to significant degradation of this prohibited substance in this urine sample.’

So, there you have it ... make of it what you will.

This is not the only drama Alligator Blood has had attached to his name in his career.

A ‘kissing-spine’ injury could well have ended his career, but he came through that challenge.

He was banned from racing in NSW and Victoria for a period of time because of the alleged status of one of his owners ... but, through it all, he has just kept on doing what he does best, performing like an elite racehorse.

Alligator Blood is now a seven-year-old ... a long way removed from that still pending Guineas result decision. He is a fifteen-time winner with seven Group 1’s behind his name and $ 8 125 525 nicely tucked away in prize-money ... and a win in the court case will add another $1160 000 million dollars plus to that total.

All the drama aside, it has been a great career.

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