KZN Paul Lafferty was recently hit with R30 000 fine by the NHRA. He responses....

Paul Lafferty Racing Stables would like to clarify a few things with regard to the article that appeared in the newspaper from the NHRA.

The NHRA came to my stables in September and proceeded to search my stables. They turned the place upside down searching through my stables including my feed and car. They took away many bags of feed samples, feed supplements routinely fed to horses by most trainers as well as medications commonly utilized in racing stables.

I was duly notified that an inquiry would be opened because they found an empty paste tube of Nitrotain. The tube had expired in 2011 and was used 6 years ago to treat a horse with Laminitis. They found that it had contained an anabolic steroid and fined me R30000. In mitigation, I argued that, firstly it had expired over three years ago, was empty and was lying in the cupboard. Secondly, I have a clean record having never transgressed in my twenty eight years as a trainer and, thirdly, had never had a positive specimen taken from any of my horses.

The rule concerning steroids only changed in June this year, long after the paste had expired. All anabolic steroids were banned from racing in June, only after a recommendation by the Trainers Association’s to the NHA to have it classified as such. Prior to this, anabolic steroids were regularly prescribed by vets to improve appetite and general well being of racehorses and commonly utilized in racing stables. The NHA were never going to ban the use of steroids prior to the meetings initiated by Trainers, who wanted a more uniform approach to be adopted when dealing with all drug classifications and the penalties attached thereto. The idea was that a more rational approach to fines around prohibited substances was imperative as ANY and ALL medication present in a horses system when presented for racing is illegal – including Antibiotics’.

Anabolic steroids are not illegal when prescribed by a veterinarian, and would be recommended by any practising vet if a horse was being rehabilitated after illness or life threatening surgery or bout of laminitis, which has a very high mortality rate in horses. Nitrotain is still the drug of choice in Australia today because it is the only steroid demonstrated to improve peripheral blood flow, vital for a successful rehabilitation in the case of laminitis and permitted in terms of the NHA rules in these type of circumstances when prescribed and administered by a vet.

I knew steroids had been banned from racing and it was purely an oversight that I did not to do a thorough clean out of my medicine room post the introduction of this rule. I did not realize that this SIX YEAR OLD EMPTY EXPIRED PASTE TUBE was present in my cupboard. If I was cheating I would have been hiding it in an obscure place where it could never be found. This substance was not present in a sample taken from any horses in my stables either in or out of competition testing.

I have often been an outspoken critic of the NHRA and believe that this amounted to nothing more than a witch hunt. Under the circumstances I honestly believe that a reprimand would be the order of the day and was amazed at the severity of the penalty.

I have lodged a notice to appeal with the NHRA.

Paul Lafferty