Tyner and O'Grady fined by IHRB after positive tests emerge from 2021 winners

Trainers Robert Tyner and Eoghan O’Grady have been fined €5,000 and €1,000 by an Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board committee after Blustery and Springfield Lodge produced positive post-race samples following wins in 2021.

Tyner, who this week announced he was quitting training, was hit with the larger fine by the panel, which convened last week and was chaired by Peter Allen.

They warned that it had considered suspending his licence after the IHRB investigation found he had intravenously administered Dexadreson to Blustery without instruction from a veterinary surgeon before victory at Limerick on July 10 last year.

The County Cork trainer told the panel the product, which contains dexamethasone, a corticosteroid with anti-inflammatory and analgesic properties used to treat a variety of ailments, had been prescribed for another horse but he treated Blustery with it when she developed a skin rash.

He told the panel that although the mare was entered for the Limerick race when he administered the substance, she was high in the ballot and he did not expect her to get in, but the race then divided at declaration time. Dexamethasone has a five-day detection time.

Robert Tyner, who was fined €5,000 after the IHRB committee found he had self-diagnosed and self-administered a substance to his Limerick winner BlusteryCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

The committee described the “self-diagnosis and self-administration” as “a serious offence” and fined him €5,000 as it was a third offence in as many years. Blustery was disqualified, with the runner-up Rubiana promoted for Caroline McCaldin and JJ Slevin.

O’Grady’s Springfield Lodge was disqualified from her handicap chase win at Downpatrick in March 2021 after she returned a positive sample for the banned substance tetramisole, a cattle or sheep wormer.

The trainer said he was unable to explain the presence of the substance in Springfield Lodge’s system, suggesting she may have ingested something when being given a pick of grass on arrival at Downpatrick or in a field in which she had grazed and galloped.

However, he told the panel he did not feel comfortable asking the landowner if the cattle that had grazed the land might have been given products that could have led to the positive test. The committee did not accept that grazing the land might have caused the adverse finding.

In fining O'Grady, its finding read: “You appear to be somewhat casual with your addressing of the farmer that you didn’t want to upset him, but I must say that once the scientific evidence is presented to us, the responsibility would rely with you to try to give us an explanation as to how that substance got into the animal’s system.

“That doesn’t appear to be given to us and nothing has been presented to us to counter the scientific evidence which we were presented.”

The Jim Dreaper-trained, Keith Donoghue-ridden Mullaghmurphy Blue was promoted to first in Springfield Lodge’s stead. Also disqualified was Babylon Beach, who won a point-to-point at Dromahane in May 2021 for Debbie Hartnett.

He returned a positive test for Dantrolene, a medication used to treat horses prone to ‘tying up’.

Babylon Beach had been prescribed the treatment and Hartnett was working on the basis of a three-day withdrawal period on the advice of her vet Conor O’Brien, and she added that she subsequently availed of elective testing to try to ensure the medication had cleared the horse’s system before a race.

The committee accepted her defence and waived a €1,000 fine, with Colin Bowe’s Getaway Lodge promoted to first after Babylon Beach's disqualification.

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