Mahmood al-Zarooni has instructed solicitors in Britain to investigate the soundness of the eight-year ban imposed upon him by racing’s ruling body in light of the fact that two recent verdicts against other trainers have been quashed.
Zarooni’s hearing, during which he sensationally admitted doping horses with steroids, was before a panel chaired by Matthew Lohn, the solicitor who has also been paid for other work by the British Horseracing Authority, raising an appearance of bias that has been enough to justify rehearings in other cases.
The BHA has accepted that verdicts issued by Lohn since October 2013 may now be open to challenge, that being the date at which he began to advise the BHA on other matters. Zarooni’s case was heard earlier, in April that year, and on that basis the Authority is likely to resist attempts to reopen his case.
A spokesman for the BHA, which has not yet been approached, said on Tuesday night: “The first approach was made to Matthew Lohn in October 2013 to provide advice on issues unrelated to his work as a panel member. While we have had no contact as yet from Mahmood al-Zarooni’s solicitors, the fact is that the case involving Zarooni was heard prior to this date.
“The BHA recently announced that it has written to a number of individuals who were party to one of seven disciplinary cases where there might be grounds to claim an appearance of bias (though no suggestion of actual bias) in the panel hearing those cases. These were cases in which Matthew Lohn sat as a member of the BHA’s disciplinary panel following his instruction by the BHA, in October 2013. The BHA took this action having taken advice from leading counsel, Ian Mill QC.”
However it is understood that Zarooni has concerns about the proceedings against him, including the fact that Lohn began to do additional work for the BHA in the following months. He has instructed Harry Stewart-Moore to act on his behalf. Stewart-Moore is the solicitor acting for the Lewes trainer Jim Best, handed a four-year ‘stopping’ ban in April which has since been struck down because it was reached by a Lohn-chaired panel.
Best’s case will eventually be reheard before a new panel. The BHA has yet to explain how it came to make such a catastrophic blunder in its handling of Lohn.
Zarooni was not available for comment but it is understood he will not challenge the finding of guilt, having admitted in 2013 that he had doped 15 horses with anabolic steroids while employed in Newmarket by Sheikh Mohammed’s Godolphin operation. His quarrel is only with the severity of the sentence, an eight-year ban that has been reciprocated by other racing jurisdictions around the world. Sheikh Mohammed disowned the trainer, saying he had banned him “for life”.
Sympathy for Zarooni will be in extremely short supply. However, there will also be renewed pressure on the BHA to demonstrate that the handling of his case was entirely fair.
There was concern at the time about the astonishing speed with which the Zarooni case was processed; from samples being taken to publication of the verdict took a fortnight, whereas other BHA cases commonly take years. Most of the BHA’s investigation took place after the hearing, with very few details ever being released.
Zarooni is said to have been greatly interested in recent revelations about the BHA, notably its failure to publish advice from Mill about how the regulator should handle past cases involving Lohn. Of potential relevance to his case is the detail that the BHA’s lawyers have, for years, had regular meetings with those who sit on disciplinary panels, the minutes of which the BHA has refused to disclose.
The BHA apologised during the Jim Best appeal for having lost sight of the critical distinction between its executive and its quasi-judicial disciplinary functions. Zarooni’s representatives will now seek evidence from the BHA that that failure did not affect his case and is not indicative of some deeper structural problem at the BHA that may have affected the length of his ban.
While Zarooni will argue his ban was harsh, it will count against him that seven additional horses in his care tested positive for steroids in the month after his hearing. He had left the country by then and has not been questioned on the subject.
