Blaming the positive drugs result on over-rigorous testing procedures is not a defence, writes Grania Willis, Equestrian Correspondent. The drugs should not have been in the horse's system in Athens.
There have been understandable expressions of shock following Cian O'Connor's statement on Tuesday evening confirming the presence of the two human anti-psychotic drugs, fluphenazine and zuclopenthixol, in Waterford Crystal's B blood sample.
However, a top veterinary surgeon stressed yesterday that neither O'Connor nor his vet, James Sheeran, have broken any laws by using this medication, even though both drugs are used to treat schizophrenia and are not licensed for use in horses.
"These are human drugs, but a veterinary surgeon is perfectly entitled to administer them. They haven't broken any criminal law," the source told The Irish Times.
The only legal complications that could arise in this case concern new EU legislation that was introduced in January, under which vets are obliged to document in a horse's passport that the animal will not be going for human consumption.
If the animal is destined for the food chain, vets are now legally obliged to list every single medication given during the horse's lifetime and, in this case, there is a strictly enforced ban on the use of unlicensed medication.
However, the source was emphatic that fluphenazine and zuclopenthixol would affect a horse's performance if used in competition.
"These are performance-enhancing drugs, full stop. That's why the FEI has a zero tolerance on them," he said. "The way it was phrased in the statement was deliberately misleading. They are mild sedatives, but they are also performance-enhancing drugs.
"There's nothing wrong in what they've said about the mild sedatives, but it's like saying an anabolic steroid has been used for a muscle injury when they are also misused as a performance-enhancing drug."
O'Connor has not spoken publicly since the B sample was tested positive in a New York laboratory on Monday, but his lawyer, Andrew Coonan, confirmed to The Irish Times yesterday that neither his client nor vet James Sheeran had acted illegally.
"There's no question that these are illegal drugs," Coonan said. "They're widely used in America and come into the same category as ACP [ probably the most familiar and widely used equine sedative drug acepromazine].
"Fluphenazine is a long-acting drug so you don't need to constantly reinject every morning or put medication into the feed when you're dealing with a horse at a very fit and sensitive stage of his life, when you don't want to start tricking around with his feed or coming in with an injection.
"Quite clearly the best thing to give is something that's going to take the edge off the horse but without having any of the other side-effects that the regularly-used equine drugs have.
"It wasn't just that the vet didn't want to make the horse unsteady on his feet and take the edge off him, but it was also an unwillingness to medicate him on a daily basis through needles or his feed or some other form of medical intervention.
"This is an oil-based medication which only has to be given once. Look at the amount that's appeared, it's infinitesimally small. Quite clearly the amounts are so small they're obviously only used for therapeutic purposes. Nobody has argued with James's [ Sheeran] assertion that the amounts were at a sub-therapeutic level."
Whatever explanation O'Connor's legal team offers to the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) for the low levels of fluphenazine and zuclopenthixol in Waterford Crystal's B blood sample, the fact is that there should not have been any traces of either medication when the horse jumped in Athens.
Blaming the positive result on over-rigorous testing procedures, as James Sheeran suggested to The Irish Times last month, is not a defence. Quite simply, these drugs should not have been in the horse's system during competition.
They are on the FEI's list of prohibited substances and, even though O'Connor and his vet have stated they were administered for therapeutic purposes out of competition, there should have been absolutely no traces left in Waterford Crystal's system when he arrived in Athens.
The shortlisted show jumpers were all contacted at the end of July following the warning from the FEI listing five drugs - including fluphenazine - that were resulting in a spate of positive tests. All the riders declared that their horses were drug-free.
So should horses be tested prior to competing in the Olympics, as they are in America, to guarantee that they will not fail a dope test? Unfortunately it isn't that easy.
Many laboratories simply won't do confirmatory tests for riders because they feel that their own testing facilities are being put on trial. And, in an increasingly litigious age, the laboratories could find themselves embroiled in legal proceedings if a horse subsequently fails an FEI medication control having been given the all-clear by the lab.
A separate veterinary source told The Irish Times that most laboratories would not do screening for private individuals.
"If there's litigation, the labs can't afford to have highly-paid skilled analysts sitting round in courtrooms," the source said. "They will do it on behalf of equestrian federations, but basically the HFL [ Horseracing Forensic Laboratory in Cambridgeshire] doesn't do full blood screens for private individuals, although the lab in France will."
Meanwhile Garda investigations continue into last week's break-in at the Equestrian Federation of Ireland. All staff members have been interviewed and fingerprinted but, after a further 2½-hour interview yesterday morning, EFI secretary general Dan Butler said that he had been told gardaí were still keeping an open mind on the case.
Cambridgeshire police are hoping to use telephone recordings to identify the caller who contacted the delivery company DHL to arrange for Waterford Crystal's B urine sample to be given to an as yet unidentified person in the driveway of the HFL.
The FEI has also said that it will, if necessary, overhaul its internal security procedures in the wake of the theft of the horse's urine sample.
As the story continues to unfold, with O'Connor's statement on Tuesday confirming the presence of the banned substances in Waterford Crystal adding fuel to the fire, public opinion is divided.
In a telephone text poll carried out on yesterday morning's Marian Finucane Show on RTÉ Radio One, 73 per cent of respondents voted in favour of O'Connor handing back his gold medal, while just 27 per cent said he should be allowed to keep it.