Opium found in Tasmanian Racehorses
Three Tasmanian racehorses have been disqualified because their food was contaminated -- with opium poppies. The first incident of its type in 10 years, this type of accidental doping is being blamed on Tasmania's multi-million dollar pharmaceutical poppy industry.
Reprinted from the West Australian.
THREE Tasmanian racehorses have been disqualified because their food was contaminated with opium poppies.
But stewards took no action against their trainer, accepting that it was an accident arising from Tasmania's multi-million dollar pharmaceutical poppy industry.
The incident, the first of its type in 10 years, sparked new fears about the threat of inadvertent doping to the racing industry, with a trainers"representative saying yesterday it was a horrendous problem.
Chief steward Johan Petzer said three horses from Hobart trainer Neil Richardson's stable were disqualified when they tested positive to the painkiller morphine after racing at Elwick.
They were My Melancholy Baby, which won on June 30; Dauberwin, which won on July 14; and Creighton, which was unplaced at the same meeting.
Petzer said stewards this week accepted the doping was inadvertent, partly because experts were able to tell that the morphine was ingested rather than injected.
