The Anabolic Steroid scandal that earned trainer Mahmood Al Zarooni an eight-year ban and has brought disgrace on the Godolphin stable of Sheik Mohammed will also raise its head at the biggest race meeting in America on Saturday.
Animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) are planning a protest at Churchill Downs racecourse where the Kentucky Derby will be staged.
The group are planning to drive a mobile billboard around the track’s entrance.
Demonstration: Churchill Downs will face animal rights protestors, with Kentucky Derby hopeful Java's WarThe sign depicts a horse with a syringe-shaped blaze on her forehead and the words "Drugs. Breakdowns. Death. Horse Racing Is a Bad Bet" and draws attention to the misuse of both 'therapeutic' and illegal drugs to keep injured horses running.
While the group need no invitation to attack racing, they have been handed fresh ammunition, especially to go on the attack over the Atlantic where they have a more lax attitude to medication use.
The bad portrait of the sport should serve as a further incentive to strive for a global policy on drugs and medication use within the sport rather than different jurisdictions drawing up their own policies.
A more constructive relationship between racing and the mainstream animal welfare groups was forged in the build-up and during this year’s Grand National meeting with the RSPCA even being donated a site to promote their ‘Equine Crisis’ campaign which highlights some of the scandalous treatment handed out to some of the wider horse population.
World Horse Welfare is an increasing influential equine charity and they will be present at this year’s Badminton Horse Trials.
The WHW stand (No 88) will offer visitors the opportunity to sign the charity’s CCTV petition, for mandatory CCTV inside slaughterhouses to ensure that the illegal abuse of horses can never happen again.
The charity will also be launching a new membership scheme, which provides horse and rider with a competitively priced insurance deal that protects owners and their horses.
Moniker: Anticipated, ridden by Richard Hughes (left), could have had an array of namesWhen the two-year-old’s sire is called Whipper and the dam Foreplay, the opportunity to conjure with names is almost vast. The Richard Hannon-trained winner at Ascot on Wednesday was finally given the name Anticipated but only after the suggestion Bushwhacker, put forward by Hannon owner Julie Wood, had been rejected by the racing naming police.
The Gamesmakers which were such a resounding success of last summer’s Olympics and Paralympics have inspired racing to try out a similar scheme.
Racemakers will be present at both days of the Newmarket Guineas meeting this weekend, kitted out in their smart Qipco British Champion Series jackets. They’ ll be offering racecourse tours and general advice including where best to watch from.
The latter might be a touch tricky on the Rowley Mile when the best viewing advice if you want to see what is really a happening would be ‘in front of a television’.
Here to help: Newmarket will employ 'racemakers' at this weekend's 2000 guineas meetingBookmakers Coral are within £12,000 of reaching the £500,000 they pledged to raise for Macmillon Cancer Support, the charity chosen by their staff to support last year.
The significant sum has been raised in 16 months and fundraising will go on until a race run for the charity on Coral Eclipse day at Sandown on July 6.
More... Bolger's Approach can cheer up Sheik in the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket Black Caviar definitely did NOT use anabolic steroids, says trainer Moody in response to Godolphin scandal Fresh Approach for Godolphin with just one runner at 2,000 Guineas Racing in the dock again as damaging doping scandal spreads after Butler claims
