Racing Correspondent On the back of disqualifying Philip Fenton for three years over the trainer's possession of banned animal remedies including anabolic steroids, the Turf Club plans to outline further measures to deal with the doping threat in 2015. These will include offering reward money of "up to five figures" for information which leads to cheats being convicted.

Racing’s regulatory body aims to create a confidential line next year to encourage people to provide information to the authorities. This will be accompanied by other steps in greater out-of-competition testing as part of the Turf Club’s new medication regime due to start on January 1st.

Plans for an extensive overhaul of the industry's drug-testing systems, for horses both in and out of training, were outlined earlier this year. There have also been funding pledges made by Horse Racing Ireland on the back of the long-running steroids controversies that have cast a pall over racing for much of 2014.

Fenton was found guilty on eight charges of possessing banned animal medicines, including two anabolic steroids, at a District Court hearing last month. Over the weekend he was disqualified from training for three years by the Turf Club’s Referrals Committee.

Another trainer, Pat Hughes, was also found guilty of possessing an anabolic steroid at a court hearing last month. He is reportedly appealing that decision through the courts.

Admission

Fenton admitted to breaching racing’s rules at the Turf Club committee hearing on Saturday and a Turf Club official has said that the Co Tipperary trainer also expressed regret at bringing shame on himself, his family and the industry in general.

The three-year disqualification has been criticised as being unduly lenient by some, but that criticism has been rejected by Turf Club officials who pointed out how Fenton accepted he was in breach of the rule from the outset of the hearing.

Turf Club chief executive Denis Egan said racing could look forward to a new medication future now that the message had been sent out that breaches of the drug rules would not be tolerated. He also said that no new steroid case had occurred since 2012 and that new hair-testing technologies would be critical to future dope-testing systems in Ireland.

“We can tell from a horse hair if that horse has been given a steroid but we can’t tell when. Work is continuing internationally to come up with an accredited protocol to pinpoint when a steroid is given,” Egan said.

“The bigger laboratories, in Hong Kong and in France, which have huge resources, are well advanced in that area and hopefully we can be in line with what they do. We hope systems can be put in place next year.”

Part of the Turf Club budget submitted to Horse Racing Ireland for 2015 includes provision for a new information hotline which it is hoped will direct resources most effectively against the threat of doping.

“Out-of-competition testing is like firing a shot into a haystack: you might hit something and you might not. But if you get intelligence you can direct resources to where the problem is. And we are quite prepared to pay for that, up to five figures for information that leads to a conviction,” Egan said.

“There are people out there who know. The Fenton case proved that. There are people out there who know that steroids are in a yard. It’s not just trainers. Others do know.”

Wind-down

Fenton’s disqualification from training begins at midnight this Friday and he will be banned from Irish racing completely from March 1st. That date was reached by the committee to allow Fenton to wind down his business affairs in an orderly manner.

“Racing has always been my life and it’s pretty hard to contemplate being out of the game but I will have to seriously consider doing something else now,” Fenton said after his Turf Club hearing.

“At times like these you just always have to hope there is some light at the end of the tunnel.”