SHOCK OVER LAB SAMPLE FIND
Power outage puts Alligator Blood results in serious doubt
Four years after Alligator Blood’s controversial Gold Coast Magic Millions triumph, a bombshell affidavit has revealed the star horse’s urine “A” sample from the day is unreliable because of laboratory flooding, a power blackout and a generator which ran out of fuel.
Racing authorities have been in the Supreme Court (Appeals division) fighting a decision by the lower court that overturned Alligator Blood’s disqualification which legally handed the 2020 3YO Guineas back to the champion horse.
There has been legal argument about potentially rehearing the case from scratch, but that would involve retesting Alligator Blood’s A and B (reserve) urine samples from the day which initially showed the presence of banned substance altrenogest.
But an affidavit penned by Dr Shawn Stanley, head of the Queensland Racing Integrity Commission’s Racing Science Centre, has sparked an incredible development in relation to the ‘A’ sample. “Unfortunately, in around late February to early March 2022 there was a severe weather event that affected Brisbane, and the subsequent flooding caused an extended power outage at the RSC,” Stanley’s affidavit, dated December 19, 2023 and obtained exclusively by Racenet,
reads. “The backup generator then ran out of fuel sometime on either February 27, or in the early hours of February 28 of February 2022, and was not restarted for several days.
“This complete power loss affected all the electronic devices in the building, including the cold room which contained stored sample 473705 (Alligator Blood’s A-sample).
“On March 1, 2022, I undertook a damage assessment and I recall that the temperature in the cold room area felt as warm as the rest of the (at that
“
This complete power loss affected all the electronic devices Dr Shawn Stanley Qld Racing Integrity Commission
time un-airconditioned) building and I also observed that the RSC’s stored samples had appeared to have thawed out.
“The cold room was not returned to the target temperature until the evening of the 4th of March 2022, at the earliest.
“Because of the power outage … it is unlikely that the RSC’s remaining portion of sample 473705 could be reliably analysed now, as the combined effects of thawing and subsequent refreezing, along with the exposure to laboratory temperatures exceeding 20 degrees Celsius for days, would very likely have led to significant degradation of this prohibited substance in this urine sample.”
The revelation could not only impact the ongoing Alligator Blood case, but could potentially have widespread ramifications for other cases in Queensland that were being investigated at the time the laboratory samples were compromised.
Regarding the case of the now seven-time Group 1 winner Alligator Blood, the star horse was initially stripped of the 2020 Magic Millions Guineas and the $1.165m winner’s cheque following a positive swab to altrenogest, with the Greg Hickman-trained Eleven Eleven declared the new winner.
But Alligator Blood’s disqualification was then voided by the Supreme Court – with the court ruling that Alligator Blood’s original owner Allan Endresz and other owners had been denied procedural fairness as they had not been given any opportunity to be heard by stewards.
Despite the ruling, the official result for the race with Racing Australia is yet to be changed, nor has prize money been paid out to the then connections of Alligator Blood.
“I think the bottom line is that the connections of Eleven Eleven will keep the prize money, but Team Gator will also be paid the prize money. More importantly, the Blood’s reputation will be restored and his name will go back on the Magic Millions winners board,” Endresz told Racenet.
“Not only that, there will be a new precedent in Australia, at the Court of Appeal level.”