From the perspective of an Australian trainer, preparing a runner for Royal Ascot is a task that needs your full attention, requiring that you can somehow keep the animal in peak condition despite having to travel to the other side of the world. But the four trainers who have made the journey to take part at Ascot this week are also likely to have one eye on events back home, where the furore of alleged doping with cobalt is a story that has preoccupied racing professionals for months on end.
The latest development came on Thursday when five people were formally charged by the stewards of Racing Victoria after a lengthy investigation. Among them was the trainer Danny O’Brien, whose Star Witness was placed in two different races at Royal Ascot in 2011. He now faces questions over four samples taken from his horses from October to December showing unusually high levels of cobalt, much higher than the permitted threshold introduced in April last year. Along with the others accused, he protests his innocence.
Charges may yet be laid against Peter Moody, known in Britain as the trainer of the superstar sprinter Black Caviar, the sensation of Ascot in 2012, when she scrambled home by a head after her jockey stopped riding prematurely. One of Moody’s horses returned a high level of cobalt in a sample in October and stewards are still considering whether it would be appropriate to take action. A decision on that and a final hearing on the charges already laid are both thought to be some weeks away.
Matters have proceeded at a stately pace but that seems appropriate, since cobalt doping is a very new phenomenon. Regulators in Australia and elsewhere are patently feeling their way toward the right way to deal with it.
Unlike many other substances used to enhance performance, cobalt is naturally occurring in horses, so simply being able to detect its presence proves nothing. The suspicion is that some racehorses have had extra cobalt introduced into their systems because it is supposed to stimulate red blood cell production, leading to an EPO-like effect of delaying fatigue.
At this early stage in our understanding of cobalt doping, even that outcome appears open to question. Unlike humans, greyhounds or racing camels, horses have the capacity to increase the percentage of red blood cells in their blood during strenuous exercise. In a racehorse at rest, that would typically be 40% to 45% but racehorses after exercise have shown levels of 65% to 70%. As a result, Dr Colin Roberts of Cambridge University, an expert in equine sports medicine, questions whether boosting the proportion of red blood cells still further would actually be helpful in racehorses, since the consequent increased blood viscosity may have adverse effects on the circulation.
The general belief in racing is that cobalt doping does improve performance, although it is also thought to lead to long-term health problems for the horse involved. So far, the issue has been a live one only for regulators in Australia and parts of the US – but the racing world is small and, if someone has tried to gain an advantage by such means in those countries, it is thought likely to be a matter of time before someone tries it here.
None of the trainers racing at Royal Ascot this week are involved in the Australian investigation but all are likely to be concerned. “It’s a very significant case,” says Robert Smerdon, whose Shamal Wind runs in the King’s Stand Stakes on Tuesday. “With the profile of those involved, it’s one of the biggest things we’ve seen in racing for a long time.”
Smerdon’s understanding is that at least part of the defence offered by one or more of those charged is that high readings of cobalt can be triggered by the use of commercially available supplements which were not thought to pose an integrity risk at the time of use. “The scientific argument is beyond my capabilities but it will take a while to run.
“Because it’s something new that we’ve never heard of before, the science has to be substantiated. How that defence stands up, we’re only speculating, looking in from the outside. Everyone is interested in seeing how it plays out.”
Asked if he had any sense that others in Australian racing might be gaining an illicit edge, Smerdon said: “Not particularly. Every time a stable has a good run of success, there’s mutterings but then the horses from that stable reach the limits of their potential and someone else is winning.
“I think [the sport] is very well governed and this is evidence of that. They are rigid, strict and regular in their testing and if they were head in the sand and negligent, those things would still be going on and there would be no accountability.”
David Hayes, whose Criterion runs on Wednesday in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes, says of cobalt: “It’s definitely been about. I have great confidence in the regulators, they’re working very hard. What’s taken so long is that they’ve followed absolute procedural fairness. These guys are all innocent until proven otherwise and they’ll be given every chance to prove that they didn’t use it.”
Jane Chapple-Hyam, from Melbourne but now long established as a Newmarket trainer, has been watching the story from afar but does not expect something similar to happen here. “English trainers would never even think of using cobalt,” she says. “I just don’t think it would ever enter their thinking. Why it crept into Australian racing, I’m led to believe it came in through trotting.
“Australian racing has had phases with things like milkshakes and elephant juice, which, I don’t really know what that is but those things never seem to creep into English racing. Here, what you see is what you get in the final furlong.”
The British Horseracing Authority hopes that is true but is nevertheless organising its defences. Robin Mounsey, the BHA’s spokesman, says that its testing regime and intelligence reports do not yet suggest that cobalt is being abused here but no one is assuming that will remain the case forever. Work is going on, in consort with other European regulators, aimed at establishing a threshold for cobalt by the end of the year.
“It’s a serious potential threat to integrity,” Mounsey says, “which is why we’re taking it seriously and treating it as such.”
