By: Rod Nicholson

A YEARLING sold at last month’s Magic Millions sale on the Gold Coast has tested positive to anabolic steroids.

It is the first case in Australia of a yearling being sold with illegal steroids since the Australian Racing Board introduced a total ban of anabolic steroids in May last year.

Queensland stewards decided to random test yearlings at the sale after concerns by trainers that they could buy in good faith, discover drugs in the yearling and be penalised through no fault of their own.

Any horse detected with anabolic steroids is barred from racing for 12 months and the penalty for administering them is a minimum two-year ban.

Queensland chief steward Wade Birch said 20 per cent of the yearlings at the Magic Millions sales had been tested, mainly at the request of purchasers.

“We took samples of 122 yearlings and only one came back positive,’’ Birch said.

“We will know more in a week after we have the sample processed by analysts and find out who the perpetrators are.”

Birch said the sales company and the vendor were on notice.

“We will continue to test at Queensland sales, as I am sure will be done at every sale now,’’ he said.

“It is not compulsory for yearlings to be tested and we believe that 20 per cent of the herd gives us a good cross-section and an understanding of the compliance or otherwise of the rule.”

A leading Victorian trainer bought the yearling but intends to return it rather than run the risk of it not being able to race for 12 months, or that it is tested again and he is unfairly connected with drug use.

Racing Victoria chief steward Terry Bailey said it was a given that stewards would random test for steroids at yearling sales.

“We will be (sample testing) at the Inglis sales coming up,” he said.

“You cannot hold the trainer responsible because he is buying blind. I think it goes back to who is responsible (for providing the anabolic steroids) — the sales company or the vendor.”

Trainers, notably Anthony Cummings and Gai Waterhouse, have been vocal in their quest for all yearlings to be tested pre-sale for anabolic steroids.

Cummings, head of the NSW Trainers’ Association, said it was incongruous that trainers could face severe penalties if they unknowingly bought a yearling that had been given an anabolic steroid before being offered for sale.

“That can put a trainer’s licence at risk because derivatives of anabolics can remain in a horse’s system for 12 months or more,” Cummings said last year when he led the campaign for pre-sale testing.

“That means if a horse tests positive to an anabolic steroid post-sale, the unknowing trainer can be banned for up to two years.

“Every horse should be swabbed at the sales and the samples tested at the cost of the breeder or sales company.”

Waterhouse said “if steroids are banned in racing, they should be banned in yearlings” and all yearlings should be drug tested so trainers were not risking their livelihood “after paying huge amounts of money for the best yearlings in Australia”.