By Conor Kane

The body that oversees horseracing is to study the fallout of a court judgment which saw former Irish Grand National winning-trainer Pat Hughes convicted of possessing unauthorised animal remedies.

Mr Hughes (72) of Fenniscourt Stud, Bagenalstown, Co Carlow, pleaded not guilty yesterday at Carlow district court to eight charges of possession of the unauthorised remedies, including one charge of possessing stanozol, an anabolic steroid.

However, he was found guilty by Judge Eamon O’Brien and fined €2,500 on the first charge, and took the others into consideration, as well as being told to pay €5,000 in legal costs and €600 in expenses.

Pat Hughes is the trainer of two Irish Grand National winners, most recently Point Barrow in 2006.

The case was taken by the Department of Agriculture following an unannounced inspection at Mr Hughes’s yard on February 2 of 2012.

Following the court hearing yesterday, a spokesman for the Turf Club said the ruling and its ramifications will be “discussed” by the club’s officials.

Stanozol was described in court as being used for “building muscle mass” and was the product used by Ben Johnson before he was stripped of his Olympic 100m gold medal in 1988. There were three bottles found in a Portakabin on Mr Hughes’s property. Among the other products found by three inspectors during their 2012 visit that are not authorised for use on animals in this country were vetaglin, a painkiller, and jurocyl which is used as an appetite stimulant.

A Department vet from the special investigations unit, Louis Riordan, said that on February 1, 2012, Customs intercepted a package which was being imported into Ireland from Australia and contained a number of animal remedies. One of the names included on the invoice as a co-signee was Pat Hughes.

He agreed none of the products found on the premises exactly matched those found in the intercepted consignment.

Another department vet, John McConville, agreed with the defence that the items were not hidden away and were past their expiry dates.

Mr Hughes said a number of the products had been placed in his car after a race meeting in 2006 by a vet, now deceased, who had purchased them from a man from Northern Ireland but had never come back to collect them.

He said he had “never” administered or any steroid to any of his horses.

Judge O’Brien found in favour of the State and said it was a “sad case”.