Equestrian head blames lingering doping claims on malice
● The man who leads SA sport’s most powerful judicial body has come out fighting at lingering allegations that there was a coverup of a doping scandal involving his daughter.
Willem Edeling’s daughter, then a minor, claimed the national dressage junior crown in George in December 2013, but her horse, Agrando Winter Amor, returned a positive test for Phenylbutazone, a painkiller.
Edeling, chair of the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) judicial body and president of the SA Equestrian Federation (SAEF), said she was exonerated at a hearing held in 2016.
A certificate of analysis sent to the SAEF by the National Horseracing Authority dated January 10, 2104 listed the positive test.
Seventeen days later SAEF secretarygeneral Wessel Strauss informed the dressage association of the offence, advising that a disciplinary hearing would be convened.
No fewer than four sources told the Sunday Times the matter was swept under the carpet at this point, but Edeling denied this.
“A hearing was held. It was most definitely not covered up.”
Edeling served on the dressage association committee at the time of the test, and one source said he battled other members on the issue.
Edeling denied any wrongdoing. “I recused myself immediately and represented my daughter. Three people ... were appointed to sit on a disciplinary committee. It is denied that my daughter’s horse failed a doping test.” Dressage SA apologised later, he added. Edeling said he and his family had been subjected to “malicious and vicious attacks” by members facing disciplinary action.
Edeling and Strauss also denied claims by several SAEF members that they ruled by fear, silencing critics by threatening suspension.
But a Pretoria vet, Dr Elizabeth Smit, is taking the SAEF head-on, claiming they didn’t follow due process after they got the world equestrian governing body, the FEI, to remove her from their panel of vets used in competition. She told the Sunday Times she was given no hearing.
Smit also produced various emails showing how Strauss had first told her it was an FEI decision, but the FEI said in a letter it had acted on the recommendation of the SAEF. Strauss said the matter was sub judice. SAEF judicial committee chair Johann
Raubenheimer said the body’s head vet had complained about comments she had made on social media which contravened SAEF and FEI regulations. She countered that her remarks were for a discipline that didn’t fall under the jurisdictions of SAEF or FEI.
Smit wants to take her case to Sascoc, as do two office-bearers from the Western Cape branch of the endurance discipline.
Michelle Behrens and Naomi Müller were suspended on July 21 after complaining about the national endurance body, a source close to them said. Their suspensions were lifted in an email on July 29, and three minutes later they were suspended again.
They too received no hearing, the source added.
Raubenheimer said the two were initially suspended for “interfering with a due investigation”.
Raubenheimer, originally from the national endurance body, denied he was conflicted handling the matter. “The decision was taken by a majority of the judicial commission, and my vote was not necessary.”
Edeling said he always insisted on due process. “Anybody within the SAEF who has been suspended by SAEF’s judicial committee has received a fair hearing.”
The SAEF has tried to block the trio from appealing their cases at Sascoc, arguing that they must complete internal processes first.
Smit countered that she can’t appeal to the same body that acted against her, and has forced Sascoc to agree to request a formal report on her case from SAEF.