Turf Club admits hotline has yielded few productive leads

It is seven months since the Turf Club introduced its Confidential Integrity Hotline, but despite the lure of potential five-figure rewards for information, Irish racing’s integrity body has conceded the phone service has yielded few productive leads.

The phone-line step was taken on the back of the lengthy steroids controversies which tarnished the Turf Club’s reputation and famously resulted in leading trainer Philip Fenton being stripped of his licence for three years in November of last year.

Significant steps to reinforce a zero-tolerance policy on prohibited substances were taken on the back of that, including establishing a confidential hotline for information that might be useful to the Turf Club in tackling not only doping but also race-fixing, irregular betting and other matters which impact on racing’s integrity.

The Turf Club’s chief executive Denis Egan has confirmed the line is still active but admitted it has produced few concrete results so far.

“We are getting plenty calls – five or six calls a week – but a lot of them hang up and very little has really come through. It is very well advertised, and our head of security is constantly on call but it hasn’t really produced results to date,” he said.

“I don’t know why that is the case but it seems to be the way it is: people don’t seem to want to be seen to be grassing,” Egan added.

Immediately after Fenton had his licence removed for three years last November, Egan stressed the importance of good intelligence on the ground in order for Irish racing’s police body to tackle those willing to cheat.

“Out of competition testing is like firing a shot into a haystack: you might hit something and you might not. But if you get intelligence you can direct resources to where the problem is. And we are quite prepared to pay for that, up to five figures for information that leads to a conviction,” he said.

Egan added: “There are people out there who know. The Fenton case proved that.”

In other news, the Longchamp stewards stripped Gleneagles of last year’s Prix Jean Luc Lagadere but both Johannes Vermeer and Shogun are in the running to secure Aidan O’Brien an eighth success in France’s top juvenile colts race on Arc day this Sunday.

Thanks to Gleneagles’ demotion, the last of the champion trainer’s seven Lagadere winners was Holy Roman Emperor who completed three-in-a-row for Ballydoyle in 2006.

“Johannes Vermeer could go, while Shogun could run if the ground came up nice,” O’Brien indicated. “The wheels were spinning the last day [Shogun finished third in the Futurity] but I liked the way they didn’t get away from him.”

Herald The Dawn won that Futurity, subsequently finished runner up to Air Force One in the National Stakes, and is also a possible to run in the Lagadere for Jim Bolger.

With ground conditions set to improve due to a largely dry weather outlook in Paris this week, the chances of Ballydoyle taking her chance in the Prix Marcel Boussac appear to be increasing although her Moyglare conqueror, Minding, is also in the Group 1 mix.

“Ballydoyle can go if the ground is nice, while Minding could run if the ground was on the slow side,” O’Brien confirmed.

Found was a third O’Brien-trained Boussac winner in 2014 and that filly remains on course to return to Longchamp to try and dethrone the hat-trick seeking Treve in Sunday’s Arc.

The weather outlook however saw some firms making Treve an even money shot with Paddy Power declaring: “Treve looked brilliant in the Prix Vermeille, but Postponed posted a quicker time in the Prix Foy and with the ground looking like coming good for Golden Horn, we’re more than happy to lay evens about her.”

Mick Halford’s Raydara is the sole Irish entry among 10 left in Saturday’s Sun Chariot Stakes at Newmarket. Andre Fabre’s Prix Jacques Le Marois winner Esoterique is one of two supplementary entries into the Group 1 prize which also includes last year’s winner Integral.