Rules ‘broken’ in cobalt case

Rules of racing were broken in the testing of Victorian trainers Danny O’Brien and Mark Kavanagh’s cobalt samples, an inquiry has heard.

Former Victorian steward Kane 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.

Ashby, the former head of Racing Victoria’s compliance assurance team, has told O’Brien and Kavanagh’s appeal that Racing Victoria wanted samples to go directly to Perth-based ChemCentre for testing.

However, the Victorian lab Racing Analytical Services Ltd, 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.

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“The rule wasn’t followed in its entirety,” Ashby said on Thursday.

“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.”

O’Brien and Kavanagh’s barrister Damian Sheales said the rules were broken.

Ashby replied: “I disagree with breaking the rules.

“It was open to us on the in-house legal advice we received to operate in that manner.”

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