The most successful season of the jump jockey Danny Cook’s career came to an abrupt end on Thursday when the 31-year-old rider was banned for six months after returning a positive drugs test for a metabolite of cocaine. Cook admitted the offence when he attended a British Horseracing Authority disciplinary hearing in London on Thursday morning, and will be banned until 24 August for making what Rory Mac Neice, his solicitor, described as “a catastrophic error of judgment”.
Cook gave a urine sample to a BHA testing team at Musselburgh on 1 February, a meeting at which he had six booked rides. He did not request testing of his “B” sample to confirm the positive finding and co-operated with the BHA’s investigation from an early stage, factors that Mac Neice argued should have led to a reduced suspension. The panel, however, decided to set Cook’s ban at the entry-point level of six months.
In a statement following the hearing, the panel said that it had decided on the penalty “notwithstanding Cook’s co-operation post-notification of the positive test, because as an experienced jockey, taking a substance, which later proved to be an illegal Class A drug, the night before he was booked to take six rides, which he then rode, was a serious matter”.
Speaking on Cook’s behalf, Mac Neice said: “Danny made what he described as a catastrophic error of judgement in taking cocaine when on a rare night out earlier this year. He has been given a six-month suspension which is in line with the BHA’s penalty guidance and Danny entirely accepts that penalty.”
Cook has not ridden since 24 February, when the news of his positive test emerged, but had already recorded 31 winners in the current season, his best total in 13 years with a licence.
Nineteen of his winners came for the Brian Ellison stable while seven more were saddled by Sue Smith, whose Wakanda gave Cook only the second Grade Two win of his career in a novice chase at Haydock in January.
Prior to Thursday’s hearing, the most significant bans on Cook’s record occurred when he took the wrong course during a race on three separate occasions in little more than a year. He was banned for 12, 28 and then 22 days for the three offences.
“He has served a month of it already and will keep riding out through the summer,” Bruce Jeffrey, Cook’s agent, said on Thursday. “I’ve already been told by both Sue and Harvey Smith and Brian Ellison that when he returns, they will carry on using him.”
Jason Maguire, who is also a leading rider on the northern circuit, said in a regular online blog on Thursday that “the initial signs are not good” in his struggle to be fit for the Grand National meeting at Aintree next month, which opens on 9 April.
Maguire missed all four days of the Cheltenham Festival, the second time in as many years that he had been forced to sit out the meeting, when he was banned for a non-triers offence at Ludlow on 18 February. He continued to ride pending a subsequent, unsuccessful appeal against the ban, and was injured in a fall from Beatu in a maiden hurdle at Catterick on 24 February.
“After missing the Cheltenham Festival with a lengthy ban, my misery was compounded further by the fact I managed to pick up quite a bad injury when falling at Catterick last month,” Maguire said on lovetheraces.com.
“The first scan I had after the fall suggested that I had a slipped disc and I may have damaged one of my vertebrae, which is not good news at all. I’m having a second opinion on it next week, but the initial signs are not good, which means I may be ruled out of riding in the Grand National for the second year running. It’s fair to say luck is not on my side at the minute.”
Gleneagles, who was disqualified and placed fourth after passing the post in first place in last season’s Group One Prix Jean-Luc Lagardere at Longchamp, was backed with several bookmakers on Thursday to win the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket in May.
Aidan O’Brien’s colt was available at 10-1 for the colt’s Classic less than a week ago, but is now top-priced at 9-2 for the race on 2 May.
Pat Cosgrave will miss the start of the Flat season on turf after suffering a fractured leg in an incident on the gallops on Wednesday. The 32-year-old rider broke the fibula above his right ankle when a horse slipped and fell on him while walking back to George Baker’s stable near Marlborough after exercise.
“These things can happen any time, but 10 days before the start of the Flat season is not ideal,” Cosgrave said on Thursday. “I am very disappointed and pretty gutted, as I had some nice rides coming up while I had made a good start to the year. Hopefully, I will only be out for five or six weeks.”
First Lieutenant, the winner of the Grade One BetFred Bowl at Aintree in April 2013, finished last of three finishers in a hurdle event at Thurles on Thursday, his first start over timber since May 2011.
The 10-year-old, who also took the Grade One Neptune Novice Hurdle at the Cheltenham Festival in March 2011, is being prepared for a run in the Grand National next month by Mouse Morris, his trainer.
