Trainer banned for 8 years
Prominent Canterbury harness racing identity Nigel McGrath has been disqualified from holding a training licence for eight years.
McGrath, who has trained for 20 years and had 570 wins worth $6 million in stake money for his horses’ owners, had pleaded guilty to three charges laid by the Racing Integrity Unit (RIU), but strongly disputed the facts on two of them.
But racing’s Judicial Control Authority said the evidence against McGrath was ‘‘overwhelming’’.
The charges were attempting to administer a prohibited substance on a raceday, refusing to supply information to a racecourse inspector, and obstructing a racecourse inspector during an investigation.
The case centred on a raid by three RIU investigators on McGrath’s stables near Rolleston on March 1, prompted by an anonymous tip-off that he was tubing horses with sodium bicarbonate shortly before taking them to the races.
‘‘Tubing’’ is the illegal practice of inserting a rubber or plastic tube through a horse’s nose into its oesophagus, usually to administer sodium bicarbonate which is said to improve a horse’s stamina.
The investigators then confronted a startled McGrath and an associate, Robert Burrows, with a horse McGrath confirmed to be Steel The Show, who was due to race at Addington just three hours later.
They took a backpack that contained tubing gear, a bag McGrath described as private as he repeatedly asked for it to be returned before snatching it back.
No sodium bicarbonate was found, but RIU counsel Brian Dickey claimed investigators had caught
McGrath ‘‘red-handed’’.
McGrath pleaded guilty to administering a substance on raceday, but said it was a product called Air Support, which he said was legally available in equine stores. He said he intended to squirt it on the horse’s tongue through a tube,
No Air Support was found either, but McGrath claims he found the empty bottle of it and the equipment used to administer it after investigators left his property.
McGrath agreed he was obstructive but denied he was abusive or aggressive.
At the hearing last month, McGrath claimed he couldn’t handle the raid that came on the back of the worst two years of his life following Operation Inca, a National Organised Crime Group investigation that was centred around allegations of race-fixing. He said he was overwhelmed and in shock.
‘‘It was like the world was caving in.’’
The RIU had asked for a disqualification of 10 years, while Pip Hall QC, acting for McGrath, argued for a monetary fine.
Hall said it beggared belief McGrath and Burrows colluded to come up with a story of administering Air Support just in case they got caught.
However, the Judicial Control Authority, in its decision published yesterday, said that the evidence was ‘‘largely uncontradicted and overwhelming’’, saying McGrath attempted to administer an alkalising agent via a gastric tube to Steel the Show on raceday.
JCA members Jane Lovell-Smith (chair) and Tangi Utikere said they took into account that McGrath, who voluntarily stopped training after the incident in March, was suffering from severe stress and was genuinely remorseful.