Ashby thought labs accredited for cobalt
Former senior Racing Victoria steward Kane Ashby denies knowing laboratories used in Danny O’Brien and Mark Kavanagh’s cobalt cases were not accredited to do the testing.
The former head of Racing Victoria’s compliance assurance team has admitted a rule of racing governing testing procedures was not strictly followed.
But Ashby, now an internal adjudicator at the new Queensland Racing Integrity Commission, said it was absolutely false to claim he was told two labs were not accredited to test for the cobalt at the time.
“It was very clear on what laboratories could test for cobalt in urine – ChemCentre and Hong Kong Jockey Club,” Ashby said on Thursday.
That advice came from Racing Analytical Services Ltd lab director David Batty, Ashby told O’Brien and Kavanagh’s appeal against their cobalt disqualifications.
Ashby said he was absolutely astounded by the claim Batty told him Perth-based ChemCentre and the HKJC lab did not have the accreditation to test for cobalt.
“If you think that I’ve bottled up something that David Batty told me, it’s absolute nonsense and it didn’t happen,” Ashby told the trainers’ barrister Damian Sheales.
Sheales said Batty had said in a statement he did tell Ashby.
But Ashby said if he had been told, he would have arranged for the samples to be sent to another lab, Sydney’s National Measurement Institute.
“If David Batty had have told me, I would have informed my superiors and the samples would have been gone to NMI to test for cobalt,” he said.
Batty has yet to give evidence to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal appeal, which after Thursday will continue at a later date.
Ashby said a rule governing testing procedures was not followed in its entirety but it was open for Racing Victoria to operate in the way it did.
He said Racing Victoria wanted samples to go directly to ChemCentre for testing but RASL, which could not test for cobalt itself at the time, wanted to retain custody of the samples.
A process was put in place to split the samples.
“The rule wasn’t followed in its entirety,” Ashby said.
“Clearly the referral of the A sample to Racing Analytical Services, that part of the rule wasn’t followed but that was an agreed process.”
The rule stipulates that the samples be tested at first instance by the first official racing laboratory.
It was instead decided that RASL would test for all other substances and the split samples would be sent to ChemCentre to test for cobalt.
Questioned about breaking the rules, Ashby said: “It was open to us on the in-house legal advice we received to operate in that manner.”