Drug tests on 9 horses

Betting on five races on Harness Jewels day at Cambridge on Saturday has been suspended by the TAB pending drug tests on nine leading contenders trained by Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen.

The leading trainers advised stewards yesterday the horses may have been exposed to drug contamination during a float trip from Auckland to Cambridge.

Stewards have ordered the nine horses be swabbed, but the results will not be known until tomorrow afternoon, the eve of harness racing’s biggest event.

It is believed the driver of the truck transporting the horses became concerned about activities of two workers travelling with the horses and reported their possible drug smoking.

Rasmussen contacted head harness steward Nick Ydgren yesterday. ‘‘Natalie has phoned me concerned that some of their horses may have come in to contact with a contaminant which is prohibited under the rules,’’ Ydgren told The Informant.

‘‘We have decided our best course of action is to swab all nine horses for that substance.’’

Purdon and Rasmussen addressed the issue on their AllStars Racing Stables website. The statement said there was a remote possibility that contamination on the float trip could lead to irregular results in testing procedures during the Harness Jewels, so stewards were notified.