Racing Victoria puts deadline on cobalt investigation into leading trainers

LEADING trainers Peter Moody, Danny O’Brien and Mark Kavanagh will know within four to six weeks whether they will be charged with cobalt chloride offences.

Racing Victoria investigators announced on Tuesday the deadline for the completion of the investigations.

Moody, Kavanagh, O’Brien and father-son training team Lee and Shannon Hope are all under investigation for elevated cobalt readings and face suspensions of up to three years if they are found guilty.

RV’s general manager of Integrity Services, former police officer Dayle Brown, said on Tuesday that the investigations had reached a sensitive stage.

He said all involved were entitled to procedural fairness and to have their investigations conducted fully, frankly and properly.

Brown said there had been a lot of discussions “on who what, where and how” and the integrity department had placed all of its resources into the probe which had been its complete focus.

“It’s important for the industry that we get this wrapped up quickly,” Brown said.

“There are a lot of people sitting around waiting for this to be resolved and I think it is important for the industry to move forward and for us to get this done and quickly.”

The Hopes returned the first elevated levels of cobalt in Victoria when stewards reported in November that two of the team’s horses had tested above the permitted 200 micrograms per litre in urine.

Their first elevated reading dated back to June, the second in July and last month stewards announced another of their horses had tested positive after a sample was taken from Choose at Caulfield on September 28.

Stewards informed Moody last month that he had one horse over the limit and the following day revealed three of O’Brien’s horses and one of Kavanagh’s were also over the threshold.

The three city trainers deny that they had administered cobalt which is produced naturally in small doses by horses, but illegal treatment of it in larger doses is toxic and can have a similar effect to banned drug EPO.

Brown said the science around cobalt was new and there were not a lot of published studies on its excretion and the effectiveness of its use.

He said investigators were looking at the science of cobalt and were speaking to a lot of experts about it.

“We have to do that to get to the bottom of this case,” Brown said.