August 31 - As long as there's horse racing, there'll be horsemen involved in the 'doping' of horses, the latest being top Australian trainer Tony Noonan, who's charge Ortensia was stripped of her Galaxy (Gr 1) win after testing positive for ractopamine.

Ractopamine is a substance that is widely used to increase muscle fiber in pigs and, unfortunately, is used by some horsemen to do the same in horses. As such, it is a banned substance, but trace amounts of it were found in a urine sample of Ortensia's.

The urine sample was taken from the mare just after she won the prestigious 1100m The Galaxy on July 17 this year at Randwick Racecourse in Sydney. And on Monday this week, Racing NSW stewards officially disqualified Ortensia from The Galaxy.

As a result of the ruling, Ortensia forfeits her Galaxy win and her owners are required to pay back all the prize money she earned from it. Racing NSW chief steward Ray Murrihy said his panel was satisfied with the evidence gathered against Ortensia.

The panel did not impose any penalty on Noonan because despite a lengthy investigation into the matter, no trace of ractopamine was found in Noonan's stables or at his feed suppliers. The trainer also claimed that he had never even heard of ractopamine.

But the owners of Ortensia are not taking the ruling lying down and intend to appeal. Said manager and co-owner, Alistair Fraser, 'There's no evidence to say what happened, I'm not convinced it is valid. Her DNA is on record, so why was it not tested?'

Fraser was referring to what he described as 'the lack of DNA evidence that the urine sample belonged to Ortensia.' The owner also questioned the chain of evidence from when the sample was taken, insinuating that it might have been tampered with.

The co-owner was not satisfied that the procedure to gather and test urine was fail-safe, despite a demonstration conducted by Racing NSW chief veterinarian Dr Craig Suann and Andrew McKinney from the Australian Racing Forensic Laboratory.

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2012/04/02 06:42:19 AM