Harness Racing NSW has taken its Menangle retention barn out of service after a Group 1 winner from last year was disqualified for returning a positive swab.
The retention barn has been a part of major races at Menangle for the past decade, but the HRNSW board decided it was not to be used for last week’s Miracle Mile, the biggest race of the harness racing year, because of a positive swab which traced back to grass inside the restricted area.
A couple of days after the Miracle Mile, trainer Sam Hewitt faced the stewards and his NSW Breeders Challenge winner Ark Sea was disqualified from her success in the two-year-old fillies final in October last year.
However, no penalty was recorded against Hewitt at the inquiry last Wednesday, and the result is now heading for an appeal.
HRNSW Chairman of Stewards, Clint Bentley, confirmed the retention barn, which is intended to be a controlled environment to ensure fair competition, was not used for the Miracle Mile due to the situation.
“We are trying to come up with a plan for how it could be used again for the board,” Bentley told Betsy. “It is an unusual situation.”
“We tested the horse in question on the way into the retention barn, and it was negative. Then it tested positive after the race. We tested other horses from the race, but none of them were positive.”
“We are bound by the rules which say a horse shall be disqualified from a race if a sample is found to contain a prohibited substance.”
The report about Ark Sea’s disqualification stated that her feed and out-of-competition blood test were negative, but her post-race test showed traces of Synephrine, a prohibited substance.
As part of the investigation, samples of plant matter and grass from in and around the retention barn were collected, and synephrine was confirmed in some of them.
It raises questions about who is responsible for the positive swab, as HRNSW control the retention barn and Ark Sea was outside its normal stable environment, as a requirement to run in the race.
Ark Sea’s connections are furious with the decision as it affects the value of her and her family being a Group 1 race.
