By David Baxter 5:46PM 14 JUL 2014
THE Richard Hannon yard is braced to be stripped of a Listed winner, as it emerged that filly Zurigha tested positive for beta blockers following her victory in the Snowdrop Stakes at Kempton in April.
However, although accepting a punishment will follow from the BHA, and the Saeed Altayer-owned Zurigha is likely to be disqualified from the race, Richard Hannon snr yesterday insisted the yard's stable staff are blameless and the horse could have come into contact with the prohibited substance at the racecourse.
A horse testing positive for beta blockers is uncommon, though not unheard of, with Lisa's Legacy, trained by Hannon snr, and the Keith Reveley-trained Eyre Square both testing positive in 2012.
Hannon snr said yesterday: "Zurigha is being done for a beta blocker after winning a Listed race on the all-weather at Kempton in April. It's not a performance enhancing drug, in fact it's a downer if anything. They [the BHA] went through this yard with a fine toothed comb, looking at whether anything here was on it, and none of them were.
"I wrote to them and asked if they had considered whether she might have picked it up in the stables at the racecourse itself, as horses are in and out all of the time and she could have gone into a box that hadn't been cleaned out properly, but that was six weeks ago and I haven't even had a reply.
"We are going to take the consequences, of course, paying the fine and losing the race, but you would have thought they would have had the decency to write back."
Should Hannon snr's assertions be proved correct and Zurigha has been contaminated from a foreign source which cannot be verified, previous cases indicate a fine, with Zurigha disqualified from the Kempton race in which Ribbons, trained by James Fanshawe and ridden by Hayley Turner, was runner-up.
BHA spokesman Robin Mounsey confirmed a reply had been sent to Hannon snr's letter, and said: "We do not comment on investigations or speculation surrounding possible investigations."
Beta blockers are used in medicine to treat conditions such as angina, heart failure and high blood pressure, but due to their effects of blocking adrenaline and reducing heart rate and blood pressure, have also been used in sport.
North Korean pistol shooter Kim Jong Su was stripped of his silver and bronze medals at the 2008 Olympics after testing positive for a beta blocker which anti-doping officials believed he used to stop his hands from shaking when shooting.
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