Reports that a prominent British trainer found traces of steroids in horses could be seriously damaging for Irish racing’s leaders
Just a few days before senior officials from Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) and the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) are due to appear before the Irish parliament’s agriculture committee to discuss “integrity and possible drug use” in Irish racing, the Sunday Independent added more fuel to the fire (£) this weekend with fresh claims to back up trainer Jim Bolger’s suggestion last year that drugs are “the number one problem” for the sport in Ireland.
One suggestion is that a well-known trainer based in Britain carried out hair testing on six horses bought from Ireland last year. According to the report, the trainer later told Bolger that the results implied three of the six had been given steroids at some stage, and also hinted at the presence of “currently unidentified possible keto steroids”, which had not been seen in any previous analyses of hair samples at the lab conducting the test.
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Carlisle
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