Urine sample took some getting

Lisa Cropp in action at Ellerslie. Picture / Paul Estcourt

A racecourse inspector has alleged top jockey Lisa Cropp told a nurse she could not provide a urine sample for a drugs test despite telling him shortly before that she needed to use the toilet.

New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing has accused Cropp of trying to conceal the presence of methamphetamine in her body when she was drug tested at Te Rapa on May 7.

In front of the Judicial Control Authority yesterday, racecourse inspector Bryan McKenzie said he had decided to have Cropp tested as she had not been able to supply a urine sample during routine testing at Hawkes Bay in January.

On the morning of the Te Rapa race meeting, Mr McKenzie set up a drug testing station which he wiped down and secured to avoid any corruption of urine samples.

Afterwards he was in the weigh room at about 10.30am when he saw Cropp walk into the female jockeys' room.

He called out and told her he needed to see her about a letter and said she asked him to "wait a minute" as she needed to go to the toilet.

Mr McKenzie told Cropp she was on a list to be tested and knowing her difficulty in supplying a sample before, suggested she go straight to the testing station.

Cropp said "just hang on a minute" and went back inside the room, where she disappeared from sight, he said.

"I remained waiting for her to reappear for a matter of several minutes."

He became concerned as there seemed no logical reason for the delay.

"There were no sounds coming from the room area to where she had disappeared. I then called out 'Lisa are you coming'. She replied 'hang on'."

Mr McKenzie said he waited another two to three minutes and thought she might be getting changed into her riding gear, but when she came out she was still in her street clothes.

He accompanied her to the testing station and introduced her to the nurse.

"A few minutes later I saw Lisa Cropp return into the female jockeys' room. I went to the drug testing station and was made aware that Lisa Cropp had been unable to supply a sample despite her claim to me a short time earlier that she needed to go to the toilet."

Mr McKenzie said Cropp later that day supplied a urine sample, although it was only 28ml and she was told by the nurse it was not enough to split.

"I heard Lisa Cropp make a reply indicating that she was happy with the one sample."

Mr McKenzie said the sample would later prove positive to amphetamine and methamphetamine.

An ESR analyst, Harold Brown, earlier told the authority the ratio of those drugs in the sample implied the methamphetamine had been absorbed into the body and metabolised.

In answer to a question from Cropp's lawyer, Barry Hart, Mr Brown said it was "extremely, highly unlikely" that the proportions of the drugs in the sample could be explained by contamination.