Racing: Drug rules clearcut to course inspector

By MIKE DILLON

The results of the Penny Gem swab from Hastings on Saturday should be known in the next 48 hours.

If there is a positive result to an illegal substance it will ruin a good record.

Last season is the first since testing began in 1952 that not a single illegal substance was found in New Zealand's 2810 winners in thoroughbred racing.

The previous season, 2001-2002, three positive swabs were detected.

Racing officials are extremely proud of last season's clean bill of health.

"It says to us that the education among trainers of the awareness of illegal substances is working well," said chief racecourse inspector John McKenzie.

Penny Gem was ordered to be scratched by the judicial panel at Hastings on Saturday after trainer Andrew Scott admitted injecting the mare with Vetradyne two hours before the $750,000 Kelt Capital Stakes.

Vetradyne is a homeopathic substance.

Scott told chief stipendiary steward Noel McCutcheon the Vetradyne was to assist with soreness in Penny Gem's back and leg joints.

Paul Moroney, brother of Scott's training partner Mike Moroney and racing manager of the Penny Gem syndicate, believed the substance was to calm the mare's jittery habits in the barrier stalls.

Homeopathic substances are becoming popular in horse racing, but the same basic rule applies as with any pharmaceutical drugs - they are illegal if they affect the speed, stamina, courage or conduct of a horse on raceday.

"That goes for any substance," said McKenzie. "Take it to nearly ridiculous levels and you could say water could be deemed to be an illegal substance if it was given to a horse in massive quantities before a race and it made the horse race slower.

"It doesn't matter whether a compound is homeopathic, homemade or herbal, if it affects the speed, stamina, courage and conduct then it is a drug as defined in the rules.

"A drug is a drug. You could liken it to heroin and the drug P. One is a natural product, the other synthetic - they're both drugs."