Cocaine use rife at Aintree showpiece
Evidence of widespread use of class-a drug gives credence to theory sport is suffering a ‘Peaky Blinders’ problem
Cocaine use appears to have been rife among those attending the Grand National, a Telegraph Sport investigation into racing’s “Peaky Blinders” drugs problem has found.
The class-a substance was present in dozens of toilet cubicles examined during this year’s festival, despite organisers saying beforehand anyone carrying illegal drugs would be denied entry to Aintree.
The apparent scale of cocaine use at such a top sporting event has cast major doubt on racing’s ability to tackle the problem.
It follows Charlie Brooks, the former jockey and trainer, using his Telegraph Sport column this month to complain that “cocaine-taking Peaky Blinders” – young men clad in similar garb to the violent gang from the BBC TV drama – had “completely changed” the atmosphere at the Cheltenham Festival since the coronavirus crisis amid falling crowd numbers there.
After seeking assurances that the world’s greatest steeplechase would not suffer a similar fate, Brooks was told organisers had a “zero-tolerance approach” to illegal substances that included the use of sniffer dogs, body and bag searches, and amnesty bins.
However, confidence in those measures is in danger of being eroded by the results of tests conducted on surfaces in almost 40 cubicles in 10 public toilet blocks at Aintree using small wipes that turn blue on contact with cocaine.
The drug, which has become cheaper, more freely available and deadlier in recent years, has been linked to a rise in football hooliganism. That has led to a law change to ban those caught in possession at games from attending future ones.
It is 7pm on Grand National day at Aintree and I Am Maximus has long since galloped to victory in the world’s greatest steeplechase.
Yet, time is only now being called on the party in the racecourse’s “Festival Zone” for those not to have had their fill of one of the biggest sporting, and social, events of the year.
For the majority, it has all been good, clean fun – as it has for most of the three-day meeting in Liverpool. But for what appears an alarming number of the 129,817 who attended the festival, a dance or two, after a race or three, a bet or four, and a drink or five, did just not deliver enough of a buzz.
That is judging by the amount of cocaine found at Aintree by an investigation into what former jockey and trainer Charlie Brooks used his Telegraph Sport column to dub the sport’s “Peaky Blinders” drugs problem.
Brooks’s decision to sound the alarm about similarities between characters in the BBC drama – a “violent gang from Birmingham who shaved the sides of their heads, wore chavvy caps, took loads of drugs and unfortunately went horse racing” – and “cocaine-taking” racegoers at Cheltenham Festival sparked a fierce debate.
That will only intensify following an investigation by Telegraph Sport that found use of the class-a drug appears to have been rife among those attending the Grand National.
Not just on the day of the big race itself but throughout the Thursday-to-saturday festival, during which multiple tests were conducted on almost 40 cubicles in 10 separate public toilet blocks at Aintree using small wipes that turn blue on contact with cocaine.
They included control tests carried out before the gates opened each morning to rule out the drug already being present in those same cubicles, which had virtually no trace at the start of day one.
By the end of Grand National day, almost all of the cubicles had shown significant evidence of cocaine, with white powder visibly present in several of them.
All this is despite race organiser the Jockey Club reassuring Brooks before the event that anyone carrying illegal drugs would be denied entry.
As at Cheltenham, the “Peaky Blinders” look Brooks linked with “edgy groups of young men” was among the many fashion choices made by those attending this year’s festival at Aintree. But the focus of one of its biggest ever security operations was on stopping a repeat of last year’s storming of the course by animal rights protesters that delayed the National by 15 minutes.
Indeed, Merseyside Police confirmed yesterday there were just two arrests at this year’s festival related to drug possession on the course, with one man also detained at the main entrance on suspicion of possession with intent to supply white powder that was seized.
The force did not respond to questions about whether any of the 13 men and one woman it said on Saturday had been arrested over the course of the event had been cocaine-tested. Most of those held were in relation to violent offences, something with which the drug has long been linked.
And while the majority of arrests during the festival were over isolated incidents, Ladies’ Day on Friday did have a five-man brawl in which racegoers threw punches at each other.
The police and the Jockey Club would not reveal whether they had conducted any prevalence studies of their own into the use of cocaine at the National or other races.
The Racecourse Association, the trade body that brings together the nation’s courses, including Aintree, confirmed that it had never carried out such a study, despite previous media investigations finding evidence of cocaine use at its venues.
The scores of arrests of protesters at the National 12 months ago render a comparison with this year’s figures largely redundant but there was still a marked increase on the four people who were held in 2022, the first festival with spectators since the pandemic.
Cocaine has long been linked by police to a serious rise in football hooliganism, leading to a change in the law to ban those caught in possession at matches from attending future games.
The drug is one of the few products to have become cheaper amid the country’s cost-of-living crisis, with a single gram having fallen from £140 to £87 between 2019 and 2021, according to the most recent United Nations data, despite an increase in purity and potency.
The number of cocaine deaths in England and Wales has also increased for the past 11 years, rising to 857 for the 12 months ending March 2023.
Several jockeys have tested positive for the drug, with the Professional Jockeys Association previously admitting the use of it had become “a problem”.
At the end of last year, the Culture, Media and Sport select committee published a report following an inquiry by MPS into safety at major sporting events.
Among its recommendations were: “The increasing use of classa drugs at sporting events is something that police and clubs should both be taking more seriously; we recommend that further work is undertaken by the police to understand the prevalence of drug supply and possession at sporting events; Alongside legal deterrents to drugtaking at sporting events, we recommend that the Sports Ground Safety Authority includes guidance in the next edition of its Green Guide on measures to discourage drug use at sporting events.”
In a response published last month, the Government said it encouraged police “to use all available tools at their disposal, including the Drug Testing on Arrest powers to test for the presence of cocaine following an arrest at a sporting event”.
In response to Telegraph Sport’s investigation, both the chair of the DCMS select committee, Dame Caroline Dinenage, and the Jockey Club issued statements of concern with each indicating a need for further ministerial intervention.
The British Horseracing Authority said: “Cocaine is a wider societal issue at present, but it is also an issue for sporting events, and therefore sports must take action to deter its use.
“We are aware that our colleagues at British racecourses are working hard to reduce the instances of its impact on racedays and we support those efforts.”