Victorian racing was further rocked on Friday by the drawn-out breast cancer drug saga after it was announced trainers from another six stables have been hit with charges of their horses testing positive to a mysterious substance that has plagued the industry for the past three years.
Racing Victoria stewards released a statement on Friday to say they had charged Matthew Brown, Adam Chambers, Nathan Dunn, Lee and Shannon Hope, Lloyd Kennewell and Paul Preusker with presentation (a horse testing positive to a banned substance on race day).
Their horses all returned positive urine swabs to formestane, 4-hydroxytestosterone and 6a-hydroxyandrostenedione between April 14 and November 22 last year. The horses ran at different courses on different days.
The Hopes’ gelding Iluvcoffee won at Benalla on April 14 last year, Dunn’s stayer Inthelapofthegods won at Mornington on May 12 last year, the Brown-trained Rip ‘N’ Rip won a benchmark 64 at Bendigo on July 13 last year, Chambers’ sprinter Major Share ran fourth at Moonee Valley on October 25, Kennewell’s mare Nursery Chime won at Mornington on November 18, and Preusker’s stayer Chairman won the Penshurst Cup on November 22.
All six horses have been banned for 12 months and their winning prizemoney has been forfeited.
The Hopes and Dunn will face the Victorian Racing Tribunal at a date to be fixed as their positives were detected before July 1 last year.
The other four trainers will have their charges heard by RV stewards following changes to the rules of racing.
So far, 13 horses have tested positive to formestane in Victoria since the first sample was detected in February 2023. No one has ever been able to explain why.
Formestane is used to treat breast cancer overseas, mainly in postmenopausal women. It is not imported for human or animal use in Australia.
It is on the banned substance list because it has performance-enhancing qualities. Both 4-hydroxytestosterone and 6a-hydroxyandrostenedione are anabolic androgenic steroids.
But The Age reported in May that breakthrough research had emerged at an international conference in Melbourne showing the substance could be endogenous (produced naturally by horses).
The research is yet to be published or peer-reviewed, and its conclusions have not been validated.
Trainers from a further six stables have already faced the Victorian Racing Tribunal this year and been fined thousands of dollars for formestane presentation – Smiley Chan, Julius Sandhu, Symon Wilde, Mark and Levi Kavanagh, Ash and Amy Yargi, and Tom Dabernig.
They have continually denied any knowledge of where the substances came from, or how they came to be in their horses.
But they pleaded guilty to the charges after reaching an agreement with Racing Victoria.
Stewards have never been able to prove the source of the positives, but under the rules of racing, there is no onus on stewards to prove the origins of a prohibited substance.
Racing Victoria announced in May it had commissioned a study with Racing Analytical Services Limited to determine if formestane and its metabolites were endogenous (naturally occurring) at low levels in racehorses.
The study will take at least 12 months. If they were found to be endogenous, the RV spokesperson said, “it would most likely require a change to the national rules and a threshold to be implemented if attainable”.
Guilty findings are rarely overturned as the Australian Rules of Racing are generally not retrospective.
RASL started screening for formestane in 2017 and did not detect a positive until February 2023.
It has now detected 24 positives from more than 40,000 samples across thoroughbreds and harness racing in Victoria, Tasmanian and South Australia.
RASL told the VRT it had not changed its equipment, procedures, methodology, or sensitivity of testing. No further positive swabs have been detected since November last year.
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