Major drug row overshadows Barbados racing celebrations

by Julian Armfield

Wednesday, March 2, 2005

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados: A huge shadow has been cast over this year’s centenary celebrations of the Barbados Turf Club and Saturday’s running of the Sandy Lane Barbados Gold Cup, the Caribbean’s richest race, by a major legal dispute between Eugene Melnyk, the Canadian billionaire owner, and the island’s racing authority. 

Melnyk’s Kathir, the runaway winner of last year’s Gold Cup, was disqualified in January – ten months after the event – following a failed drug test. The Canadian’s Barbados lawyers immediately issued a statement asserting that they had advised him that the Turf Club’s decision was wrongly reached and that it would be challenged.

The scene was then set for a dispute similar to that which followed the disqualification of the Aga Khan’s Aliysa, winner of the 1989 English Oaks. That filly’s demotion triggered one of the longest running and most expensive inquiries in horseracing history. 

Melnyk, owner of the National Ice Hockey League’s Ottawa Senators, has now obtained a Court injunction preventing the Barbados Turf Club from executing the judgment of its stewards and plans to take the matter to the High Court and, if necessary, to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the court of final appeal for British Commonwealth countries. Success for Melnyk could have serious financial repercussions for the Turf Club. 

The dispute is made all the more embarrassing for all concerned by the fact that Melnyk, who has made his home in Barbados, has become an unofficial ambassador for his adopted island in Canada and the U.S, where his racehorses are named after Barbados landmarks and carry the blue and gold national colours.

Melnyk is one of the leading owners in North America and Barbados received extensive publicity from Speightstown’s victory in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Sprint, at Lone Star Park in Texas, and his subsequent Champion Sprinter Eclipse Award.

According to the Turf Club, Kathir, who was trained for the Barbados race initially in the U.S., by Todd Pletcher, named as Outstanding Trainer of the Year at the same Eclipse Awards in January, and then by island handler, Naz Issa, tested positive for a prohibited substance identified as methylprednisolone, an anti-inflammatory, classified as a steroid. 

Gus Reader, a veterinary officer at the Garrison Savannah racecourse, said: “The first six horses home were all sampled in the same manner. The samples were processed, packaged, secured and sent to the Horseracing Forensic Laboratory in Newmarket, England, which disclosed that the horse had tested positive.” 

Melnyk’s lawyers take a different view: “Nearly every collection protocol was violated by Turf Club personnel, including a myriad of false declarations concerning the actual collection of the post-race sample at issue. The identity of the donor sample was placed squarely at the issue as Kathir was not identified by any representative before or after his participation in the Gold Cup,” they said.

“Having failed to do so, when samples from nearly identical looking horses were being collected simultaneously, resulted in three different individuals claiming to have collected the single sample from the winner. The sample was never properly frozen by the Turf Club and further, when shipped overseas it went ‘missing’ unnoticed for a period of eight days in an unrefrigerated state.”

Melnyk’s legal team is convinced that a ‘neutral body’ will reverse the ruling while the Canadian remains committed to Barbados despite being “deeply concerned, hurt and severely embarrassed” about the way the matter has been handled. 

Meanwhile, the winner’s prize money has not been disbursed and the Barbados Turf Club’s website still credits Kathir as the race winner. In a further twist to the tale, Kathir is set to defend his “crown’ on Saturday. He is being prepared for the race by U.S. handler, Tony Reinstedler. 

Eleven horses have been declared for Saturday’s race, which carries prize money of 60,000stg. Melnyk will also be represented by Mellowes while veteran trainer, Bill Marshall, who has saddled the Gold Cup winner on seven occasions, runs Thady Quill, the 2003 winner, Peace Angel and Storm Hunter.

Thady Quill and Peace Angel will carry the colours of Gay Smith, wife of Derrick Smith, one of the Barbados- based owners who secured the UK services of jockey Kieren Fallon last week. Storm Hunter is owned by Lord Michael Taylor. 

Rumours are rife on the island that Melnyk will be shunned by some when he arrives at the racecourse and that T-shirts embossed with the words ‘Come Clean Eugene’ may be in evidence. But win or lose, Melnyk is sure to be welcomed by most Barbadians and by the large contingent of Canadian racegoers and will stage his lavish annual post-race party at his cliff-top mansion, where in recent years, guests have been entertained by rock legends Bon Jovi, Meatloaf and Bryan Adams. 

Julian Armfield is Chief Racing Correspondent of BBC World Service 

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