Screen tests unreliable: Bailey
Racing Victoria does not notify trainers about positive screen results because the early results can be unreliable, a cobalt appeal has heard.
Chief steward Terry Bailey said RV does not tell trainers about positives for any prohibited substance until it gets the first analysis certificate.
“Screening levels we’ve found in the past have been unreliable,” Bailey told Danny O’Brien and Mark Kavanagh’s appeals against their cobalt disqualifications.
“We don’t act on screens because we’re not confident of the readings.”
Bailey said there were issues in the past with screen tests for total carbon dioxide (TCO2) levels, including involving O’Brien horses that were held back after races at Flemington in 2013 for further samples to be taken.
“They did receive a lot of criticism because it ultimately turned out the screens were out of the ball park, incorrect, and it did obviously bring a lot of attention to the O’Brien stable because we had acted on those screens,” Bailey said.
RV brought in its cobalt threshold in April 2014, while a national threshold came in the following January.
Bailey, who said he was used to criticism in his job, said he worked on the cobalt proposal with RV head vet Dr Brian Stewart.
“What Brian left me with no doubt was it was performance enhancing and it was an issue,” Bailey told the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
“Time has shown he hasn’t got it wrong.”