Irish trainer suspended in case of horse sedation

An Irish trainer has been banned for six months after a horse he trained tested positive for a drug providing a “dangerous degree of sedation” during a race meet in October 2018, according to The Racing Post.

Charles Byrne, who has won multiple group races in the United Kingdom, was handed the six-month suspension by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board after Viking Hoard tested positive for acepromazine, a sedative, at 100 times the permitted level.

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Although the IRHB said that it had no evidence to link Byrne to the administration of the drug, the penalty was imposed under a variation of the absolute-insurer rule in Ireland, in which “it follows as a matter of probability that Mr. Byrnes’ general mode of operation permitted such a strategy to be viable.”

The IRHB also said that it had procured evidence that substantial wagers were made on Viking Hoard to lose the race on an exchange-wagering site, according to The Racing Post. Viking Hoard was pulled up in the race, which was held at Tramore.

The IHRB’s deputy head of security, Declan Buckley, provided evidence that the bets on Viking Hoard – along with bets-to-lose placed on two of the horse’s previous races – had been traced to a “limited liability company,” which in turn used the exchange-wagering platform Betfair. Buckley went on to say that those bets could be traced to an unidentified person “based in a distant part of the world and [who] was said to be associated with match-fixing and associated betting in connection with other sports.”

The Racing Post said that Byrne declined to comment on the penalty but said he would appeal the suspension.