Prominent trainer admits charges, fights ban
A high-profile harness racing trainer has admitted three serious racing charges following a dramatic raid of his property, but claims he is innocent of an allegation that could see him banned for a decade.
Canterbury-based Nigel McGrath has pleaded guilty to 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 dispute of facts and crux of the case surrounds the substance of what was or was about to be administered to the horse.
McGrath has admitted breaking racing’s ‘‘one clear day’’ rule – a charge of orally administering a horse with a legal substance (Air Support, a herbal product intended to aid a horse’s respiratory function) within 24 hours of a race. But he has denied a more serious allegation of ‘‘tubing’’ a horse to administer sodium bicarbonate (regarded as a performance-enhancing substance), laid by the Racing Integrity Unit (RIU).
Tubing is a practice where a tube is inserted through a horse’s nose into its oesophagus to administer a liquid substance.
The RIU’s case centres on a confronting video of the raid, taken by its investigators, that was played at a hearing at Addington raceway.
Defence counsel Pip Hall, QC, argued for a monetary fine for the three charges McGrath has admitted to, while the RIU has sought a 10-year disqualification.
McGrath’s fate will be decided by a Judicial Control Authority (JCA) committee of Jane LovellSmith (chair) and Tangi Utikere in the coming weeks.
‘‘I ask for a further chance to prove I’m not a cheat as I’ve been portrayed,’’ McGrath said when giving evidence.
The hearing was told that RIU investigators, acting on an anonymous tip-off that McGrath was tubing horses with sodium bicarbonate shortly before taking them to the races, staked out a shed away from the main stabling area at his property near Rolleston.
Three RIU investigators then confronted McGrath and an associate, Robert Burrows, with a horse
McGrath confirmed to be Steel The Show, who was due to race at Addington three hours later.
The investigators took possession of 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’’.
No Air Support was found either, but McGrath claims he found the empty bottle of Air Support and the equipment used to administer it after investigators left his property.
Dickey said it was ‘‘bordering on a fairytale’’ to suggest the items were present during the raid but not found by or drawn to the attention of the RIU investigators.
McGrath said he didn’t do that because he was in shock.
RIU investigators said McGrath’s demeanour was ‘‘aggressive and obstructive’’. He refused to answer questions.
At the hearing, 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. ‘‘It was like the world was caving in,’’ McGrath told the hearing.
McGrath was arrested on September 4, 2018 as part of the Operation Inca police raids, but his only charge was dropped in August 2019.
The RIU subsequently laid a racing charge which saw him handed a six-month driving ban and ordered to pay costs of $11,500.
McGrath has been barred from entering any racecourse since the March raid.