Racing’s drug farce revealed
How jockey became victim of French incompetence
If it looks like a pig, feels like a pig and smells like a pig, it probably is a pig! Those words will be eating into the conscience of the British Horseracing Authority when it reviews France Galop’s procedures and subsequent behaviour regarding jockey Robert Havlin’s eight-month-10-day ban, enforced as a result of a “positive drugs sample”.
However, the BHA will be relieved that it has an independent disciplinary panel to decide whether this ban should be reciprocated. The panel’s brief will not be to consider the merits of Havlin’s case or what the judgment would have been here. Instead, it will be based on France Galop’s procedures and grounds of natural justice (or lack of). It will also consider the proportionality of the penalty imposed.
On Oct 30 last year, Havlin had a urine sample taken at Saint Cloud racecourse, near Paris. But I have discovered that, in breach of the France Galop rules, neither the doctor’s name nor his stamp were entered on the test form.
One does not have to be a lawyer to appreciate that this omission invalidates the test. But, laughably, France Galop says Havlin should have raised an objection to its breach at that time. In other words, it was the responsibility of the jockey to make sure it followed its own protocol.
The next failure, however, is much more significant. France Galop’s rules state that the sampling equipment must be validated and verified. For example, paperwork must be completed, confirming who supplied the test-taking equipment, its source, the uncontaminated opening of the equipment etc. I can now tell you, this did not happen on Oct 30 at Saint Cloud and the necessary paperwork was not filled in. Upholders of natural justice would say that is a catastrophic failure of procedure and that should be the sorry end of this matter.
The French case is that cocaine, morphine, temazepam, oxazepam and nordiazepam were found in Havlin’s sample. When Havlin asked for a ‘B’ sample to be analysed, France Galop ‘forgot’ to test for all of the above except cocaine. While there were legitimate medical grounds for the last three being present – Havlin had a back injury – France Galop’s extraordinary approach to this case renders them irrelevant.
Contemporaneously, Havlin volunteered a hair sample to be tested by a laboratory recognised by the French authority. The sample confirmed that Havlin had not, and could not have, actively consumed cocaine prior to, or on, Oct 30.
Meanwhile, the French refuse to disclose what level of cocaine they supposedly found in Havlin’s ‘A’ and ‘B’ samples, or whether those results were consistent.
Unlike the BHA, France Galop does not have a threshold level for cocaine, so it cannot distinguish between someone unknowingly coming into contact with cocaine – handling an average £20 note – and actively taking the drug.
The BHA threshold for cocaine metabolites is 300 nanograms per millilitre. But how can its independent panel be certain that Havlin’s level was above that? And how can justice have been served when France Galop hides what Havlin’s levels were alleged to have been? Again, anyone with the briefest nuance of natural British justice knows lack of disclosure should collapse any case.
For the record, Havlin’s hair sample was declared as: “Well below the threshold for positivity and could not conclude an active consumption of cocaine.”
When one moves on to consider the proportionality of the jockey’s ban, things go from bad to worse. His initial ban was for six months. But his punishment for appealing the ban has been two months and 10 days – never mind the costs.
His licence to ride was suspended on Jan 26 and France Galop attempted to stop him raking over its incompetence and
appealing by extending his initial six-month ban until after it had thrown his appeal out. That cannot be considered to be proportional. Reasonable people might concur it smacks of an attempted cover-up.
At his own expense, Havlin is now challenging France Galop in the French courts in an attempt to clear his name. But, in the current Brexit political climate, what are the chances of an Englishman getting the decision of an official French sporting body overturned? But, practically, the threat of a reciprocal ban here is the next real threat to his livelihood.
In light of these flagrant breaches of procedure, the BHA should be examining its reciprocal links with France as a matter of urgency; not just sweeping the affair under the carpet to preserve entente cordiale.
The BHA may feel that its independent disciplinary panel gives it clear water between Havlin’s ban being reciprocated and France Galop’s behaviour. It should not be confident, however, that the sporting world’s perception of it will not be tarnished beyond repair if this outrageous breach of natural justice is extended.