Controversy and Royal Western India Turf Club seem to go hand in hand. After last year`s controversy surrounding the positive finding of Boldenone in Bullseye which resulted in police enquiry, sabotage theory and filing of A report by the Police, comes the fresh charge of allegation by the owners of Disraeli whose horse had tested positive for Boldenone during testing in training. Disraeli is co-owned by Jaydev Mody who is also Committee Member of RWITC.

Following the representation made by the owners of Disraeli to Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) that they see a ``conspiracy in administration of Anabolic Steroid Boldenone or tempering with his sample after collection of their horse Disraeli to malign their good reputation, the Board has written a letter to the Secretary seeking certain clarifications and constituting a panel consisting of Dr F F Wadia, Shivlal Daga, Dr Sridhar and Miss Ross Craig Jones to enquire into the matter and submit a report to the board. The letter has been sent by Maj. Gen. (Dr.) R.M. Kharb, AVSM (Retd.),
Chairman, AWBI

The following is the text of the letter sent by Maj Gen Kharb to the Secretary of RWITC.

``The owners of Race Horse Disraeli have made a representation to Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) that they see a conspiracy in administration of Anabolic Steroid “Boldenone” or tampering with his sample after collection of their race horse “Disraeli”, to malign their good reputation.

It is indeed surprising that Disraeli was retested on 17th July 2015 and the sample was found clean. Some of the irregularities pointed out by the owners of Disraeli in their letter are as under:

1) “There is a system in place where random samples of four horses of five trainers are drawn by lots to be tested every month.

2) The Calendar notification of the `RWITC Rules of RACING (NORMS FOR SAMPLING - Point 7) clearly stipulates that "Random samples will be collected from 20 horses every month. For this purpose, horses will be selected by a Sub-Committee consisting of the Senior Veterinary Officer and the Senior Stipendiary Steward."

In the case of Disraeli the lots were apparently drawn by Mr. RM Khan (Racing Secretary) on 19th June 2015 when he clearly did not have the authority to do this. Both the Senior Veterinary Officer and the Senior Stipendiary Steward were not present in RWITC when this was done.

Did RM Khan act on his own or was he ordered to do so by someone and if so who was this person?

3) The names of the horses trained by Mr. Bezan Chenoy to be sampled were only given to him in an unsealed envelope by an RWITC peon on 21 June 2015 and samples drawn on 22 June 2015 morning.

There was a full 72 hours gap after the lots were drawn by RM Khan and is a serious lapse as this sensitive information could have been accessed by any number of people and given those prejudiced against us ample time to get at the horse especially since being a grey he is easily identifiable.

What was the need to have this sensitive information compromised for 72 hours prior to testing?

4) The samples were collected on 22 June 2015 at the sampling yard and as per the RWITC Rules of Racing (NORMS FOR SAMPLING - Point 9) "Random samples will be collected in the Sampling Yard under the same procedures as for post-race samples."

Here too there were serious lapses - No video recording of the collection of the samples as the CCTV system was not working and the entire Sampling Yard was in a completely unsterile and unhygienic condition.

Further there was no proper chain of custody to know who is responsible for the keys to the storage unit where these samples are kept prior to dispatch to the lab when the Senior Vet Officer is not present.

5) The samples were finally sent to the Hong Kong lab for testing on 25 June 2015 when the Senior Veterinary Officer returned to RWITC.

Why was this entire process of random sampling done in a hurry when the only two persons who are authorised to select the horses for a random sample were not present at RWITC?

The samples were not sent for analysis until June 25, 2015 when the Senior Vet had returned and therefore this whole process could easily have been carried out after he returned.

There are serious lapses in the entire process of this random sampling from the selection of horses to the final dispatch of the samples for analysis. There is more than reasonable doubt to presume that either the horse was `got at` or the sample was tampered with after collection. There is more than enough justification for this line of thought as Disraeli was tested once more on July 17, 2015 and this time the test returned CLEAN.

Under the circumstances the owners of Disraeli have grave doubts as to the integrity and fairness of the whole process and therefore requested AWBI to hold an independent enquiry into this as well as in the spate of other `positives` that have been returned in the past few weeks at RWITC as they have reasons to fear that the safety and welfare of more horses may be in jeopardy in the future.”

In view of foregoing it has been decided by AWBI to appoint an independent Govt. enquiry committee of four persons headed by Dr. F.F. Wadia, President, National Horse Breeding Society of India to investigate into the issue of doping of “Disraeli” and to pin point responsibility. The composition of the enquiry committee will be as under:- F F Wadia (Chairman), Shivlal Daga (Government Inspector and member, RWITC), Dr M Sridhar, Member Secretary, Hyderabad Race Club and Ms Ross Craig Jones, Government Inspector, Bangalore Turf Club.