Champion trainer Pesi Shroff`s appeal against nine month suspension for his ward Bulls Eye testing positive for Boldenone on arrival from Nanoli Stud Farm is to be heard by the Appeal Board of Royal Western India Turf Club on Monday, May 19. The suspension has caused endless controversy, with the supporters of either side going on a war path in defense of the trainer and the punishment. The Appeal Board has an onerous task of taking a fair decision keeping in mind the principles of natural justice and fair play.

The question that the Appeal Board has to address is whether the trainer can be suspended for as many as nine months for vicarious responsibility. The club has not charged the trainer for being directly responsible for the presence of Boldenone in a horse which had just arrived from the stud farm after a long break. The horse was not under his charge though technically the club can claim that the trainer had not handed the horse back when the mare moved to the stud farm from the stables of RWITC for spelling.

The suspension has been perceived as being out of proportion especially since the club had not dealt so harshly for trainers whose wards had tested positive for the same drug in post race samples. Now Pesi`s case is different from past instances. The trainer has been given nine month suspension for vicarious responsibility. This surely is disproportionate. The suspension has led to bitter acrimony with reason taking a back seat in the bargain.

It is a pity that the club did not make efforts to get to the bottom of the matter by having a detailed enquiry by taking the assistance of several agencies before pronouncing its verdict. Instead, the club passed the buck to the trainer and put his career in jeopardy. Pesi Shroff, without doubt, is the most successful trainer in recent times and he carries much more credibility than other professionals at Mumbai. The onus thus was on the club to ensure that the trainer whose wards race to their merits was not unduly harassed and given every opportunity to defend himself. The club was also expected to go beyond the obvious and order a thorough enquiry rather than superficially dealing with the issue.

There is an interesting parallel to that of Pesi. Australia`s leading trainer Gai Waterhouse was only fined after a detailed enquiry for the presence of Boldenone in one of her wards. The Stewards gave the trainer ample opportunity and did not rush through with the enquiry which lasted for several months. Perfectly Poised, trained by her, tested positive for Boldenone after finishing second in a race. The incident relates to the year 2007. Waterhouse was fined 10,000 Australian dollars but pronounced not guilty of being responsible for using the banned drug.
At one point during the lively hearing, Waterhouse claimed the panel was trying to "hang" her.

"I am trying to be hung by you … My career is hanging here," she pleaded. "I am as squeaky clean as you can possibly get… here you are accusing me."

A brief narration of the enquiry and other information pertaining to the enquiry makes for interesting read. The enquiry started badly for Waterhouse. Fifteen minutes into the inquiry, which began a year earlier after her horse Perfectly Poised tested positive to the steroid Boldenone, Racing NSW stewards dropped a bombshell.

The inquiry had been dragged out for five months as Waterhouse sent hair samples from the gelding to the US, where a leading laboratory might be able to show — as she maintained— that Boldenone had been injected into Perfectly Poised before joining her stable.

The horse raced 110 days after Waterhouse took charge of him, finishing second behind Siestas at Canterbury on April 18, 2007. A post-race urine test showed Boldenone in its system —the steroid is commonly used around yearling sales because it is a drug that gives horses the appearance of having more muscle and mass.

After Kentucky laboratory ChemPharma returned the results of the sample, the inquiry was able to continue.

Racing NSW chief steward Ray Murrihy, sitting opposite Waterhouse and her lawyer Clive Jeffreys, noted the findings of American chemist Professor Thomas Tobin.

Four blind samples were sent to the laboratory — one from Perfectly Poised and three randomly from horses in the Racing NSW research stable. Traces had been found in one of the samples and, judging by the length of the hair from the mane and tail, it was calculated the drug had been there for about nine months, just after Perfectly Poised would have arrived at Waterhouse`s stable.

Those findings would create enough doubt about the timing of the drug`s administration that punishment would be difficult.

Then the sucker punch: the positive result was not in Perfectly Poised`s sample, but in the 12-year-old gelding Wizard, who had never come into contact with Boldenone, Racing NSW`s veterinary Dr Craig Suann said.

"I would like some time to digest what we have been given," Jeffreys said.

The Kentucky testing procedure looked questionable because of the anomaly.

Waterhouse`s team took a 30-minute break, and then returned to claim it was not possible to prove exactly when the drug was administered.

Chemist Andrew Vadaz said the levels found in Perfectly Poised were so high "but not of the peak level", it was possibly administered three weeks before the race. But no one could be certain.

Waterhouse said there was too much doubt about when Boldenone was given to Perfectly Poised to penalise her, maintaining that with her 140 horses and 75 staff in Sydney, she had done all she could to retain her 17-year standing as the industry`s "No. 1 trainer".

The panel found Waterhouse had played no part in administering the drug, but was guilty under rule 178, which states that liability over horses presented for racing rests with trainers, and fined her $10,000.

Earlier, Gai Waterhouse had questioned whether Australian racing`s drug laws were outdated during the controversial Perfectly Poised stewards` inquiry.

"Why should my career be on the line every time something like this comes up?" Waterhouse said.

"They must get some threshold levels in place for situations like this.

"We can`t be in the dim, dark ages, we are moving into 2008.

"Is this minuscule amount going to change performance or enhance it? No, it won`t."

Perfectly Poised was found to have traces of the banned substance Boldenone in its system after finishing second at Canterbury back in April.

Racing New South Wales stewards disqualified Perfectly Poised from the race but adjourned the inquiry for up to two months so further testing could be carried out.

Waterhouse`s legal representative, solicitor Clive Jeffreys, argued successfully that hair samples from the mane and tail of Perfectly Poised should be tested by a leading US forensic analyst to assist in identifying how long the banned substance had been in the horse`s system.

"Professor (Thomas) Tobin has a laboratory in Kentucky which can do this testing," Jeffreys told stewards while adding that the testing procedures could not be performed in Australia.

"Mrs Waterhouse doesn`t want this inquiry to go to finality until these tests are done."

Jeffreys believes further testing is imperative because it could provide a "time frame" for the likely administration of Boldenone to Perfectly Poised.

Racing NSW chief steward Ray Murrihy agreed to Jeffreys`s request and adjourned the hearing.

"It is in everyone`s interest to get to the bottom of this," Murrihy said.

Racing NSW stewards ordered more hair samples be taken from the horse and will send both to the US laboratory.

Jeffreys told stewards he estimated there would be a "six-to-eight-week turnaround" before results of the hair sample testing was known.

Waterhouse had Perfectly Poised in her Randwick stables from late December last year. She was trying to ascertain whether the substance was given to the horse prior to that.

The champion trainer was emphatic when asked by Murrihy whether boldenone had ever been used by her stable.

"No, never," she replied.

"(Boldenone) has never been in my stable. It has never been administered by me or my staff."

Murrihy also took evidence from Ollie Tait of Darley Stud, where Perfectly Poised was spelled, and Scone trainer Rodney Northam, who pre-trained the filly before it was sent to the Waterhouse stable last year.

Tait and Northam both told stewards they had no knowledge as to how Perfectly Poised tested positive after the Canterbury race.

"I`d never heard of it until this," Northam told stewards.

In the days leading to the final decision of the Stewards, malicious intent was not ruled out by Gai Waterhouse`s senior vet following revelations Perfectly Poised tested positive to a banned steroid.

The horse`s owners, its pre-trainer and the veterinarian all denied injecting the Waterhouse-trained filly with boldenone.

This pointed to the drug being administered while the horse was at the Waterhouse stables at Randwick. Waterhouse refused to comment on the matter; however the vet who treated Perfectly Poised raised the specter of foul play.

"The thinking must turn to the possibility of a malicious act," the veterinarian said.

The vet, from the Randwick clinic which tends to the Waterhouse stable, said emphatically Boldenone was not a drug used by staff at the clinic.

"Weightlifters love it but our practice does not purchase it at all," the veterinarian said. "We do deal with certain anabolics, for treatment on geldings after a hard campaign, for instance, and this treatment is effective for perking them up and off they go for a spell.

"But boldenone is one of those drugs that is not easy to get hold of, for one. Secondly, it is not one commonly found in racing because of its unpredictability in staying in the system for a long period."

Northam pre-trains regularly for Darley and his records, which have been passed on to Racing NSW pending the inquiry, show he received Perfectly Poised on December 8 and pre-trained her for three weeks.

"I had her until December 28 when she went off to Gai," Northam said.

"My vet is the same vet for Darley and I have no record of him being to my property during the time Perfectly Poised was there.

"So there is no record of her being treated by a vet and I can assure you I didn`t give her anything like that."

From the time Perfectly Poised left Scone to the day she raced at Canterbury 110 days had elapsed.

It is clear that laboratory tests are not fool proof and the club cannot hang a professional without being thoroughly convincined of the guilt. If there is an iota of doubt, then it should go the professional. This is how democratic set ups function.

(Sourced from various Australian websites)