A group of Victorian trainers who have consistently denied doping their horses with a banned breast cancer drug have secured a significant legal victory over Racing Victoria, after critical evidence from its veterinary expert was withdrawn.
RV has also conceded, late in proceedings, to a number of charged trainers, who were forced to spend thousands of dollars in defending their reputation, that those charged did not administer any drugs to their runners.
The trainers – Mark and Levi Kavanagh, Amy and Ash Yargi, Symon Wilde, Julius Sandhu and Smiley Chan – have strongly maintained their innocence since their samples were returned with positives to Formestane and its derivatives and have spent significant amounts of money attempting to clear their name.
In a recent development, RV agreed to withdraw key evidence from its vet Dr Edwina Wilkes against every trainer involved as part of an agreement reached by lawyers for both parties.
As part of the legal process, RV has since conceded they “will not seek to establish that the detected substances are from exogenous origin”, essentially admitting they no longer believe the substances were deliberately given to the horses in question.
Crucially, RV also accepts it does not have any evidence to contradict what the trainers told Stewards, essentially they cannot explain how the substances came to be in the horses’ urine, again conceding the banned substance was not deliberately administered by the trainers or their staff.
RV will also withdraw key evidence provided by Dr Wilkes, some of which was contested in court by the trainers’ legal representation.
But as part of the agreement, the five stables change their plea to a presentation charge to guilty, which essentially admits that Formestane was in the urine samples taken on raceday.
This is despite the trainers, who operate independently and in different parts of Victoria, maintaining they have no idea how the drug got into their horses’ systems. RV, Betsy is told, is still pursuing a guilty plea at the Victorian Racing Tribunal.
The agreement, which was arrived at between RV’s legal counsel and Damian Sheales, representing the trainers, came at the end of a five-day VRT hearing in December and will also see testimony from several other expert witnesses withdrawn.
The trainers remain subject to a penalty from the VRT, which will conclude the case on 25 February.
So far, seven Victorian stables are facing similar charges for presenting horses to race with the banned substance Formestane and its metabolites, including a synthetic anabolic steroid 4-Hydroxytestosterone, in their systems.
Formestane, used overseas as a treatment for advanced breast cancer, is not approved for human or animal use in Australia.
The first of the charges were laid in April 2024 when RV announced that it would attempt to prosecute the Kavanaghs, the Yargis, Wilde, Sandhu and Chan for a breach of the rules.
Patrick Payne was hit with similar charges in February 2025, while Tom Dabernig was the latest trainer to be charged in mid-December.
At least four other Victorian stables have been notified that their horses have also returned positives to Formestane but are yet to be charged. A trainer in South Australia has also returned a positive.
How and why Formestane has suddenly started to appear in test results remains unclear with Racing Analytics Services Limited (RASL), the lab that tests all samples in Victoria and South Australia, confirming that its testing regime did not change in the lead-up to the string of Formestane positives.
All positive tests relate to post-race urine samples. Subsequent blood and hair samples taken from those same horses have not returned positives for the banned substances.
Stakes-winning mare Sirileo Miss is the highest-profile horse to return a positive to Formestane.
