BATHURST harness racing trainer Nathan Turnbull has won the right to continue to train despite a first sample taken from Destiny Warrior showing an irregularity to cocaine after he won at Dubbo in February.
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Turnbull told Fairfax Media that Destiny Warrior had returned a swab positive to cocaine in his first sample from his win on February 22, but said if the second sample confirmed the result, he would be defending the charge.
“I can’t make any comment about it at the moment,” he said.
Harness Racing NSW stewards had stood down Turnbull under rule 183 last week, but he appealed the ruling on Monday and the NSW Racing Tribunal overturned the decision after an admission by a third party who admitted using the drug on the way to the races.
At Turnbull's appeal against the standing down, the third party – know as the user – “made full and frank admissions” to stewards that he had handled Destiny Warrior and its gear before the race after using cocaine.
“The evidence will appear to be, before the stewards, that the user consumed cocaine before he got into the transport vehicle en route to the subject race, that he did not wash his hands – and never does – that he snorted, to use the tribunal's understanding of the appropriate vernacular, the cocaine into his nose using a $20 note, that on arrival at the races he had to hand across that $20 note to pay his admission to the ground,” judge David Armati wrote in his ruling allowing Turnbull to continue to train.
“The evidence has not yet reached the stage of inquiry to the extent that the transmission of cocaine by a handling of the gear, if it did occur as the user described, or if it occurred by a transmission through the handling of the $20 note and subsequently the handling of the horse, do not have to be determined in this appeal.
“Those are matters for the stewards. And, importantly, this tribunal does not have to determine to the Briginshaw standard precisely what happened.”
HRNSW integrity manager Mick Prentice said an irregularity to benzoylecgonine and ecgonine methyl ester, which are metabolites of cocaine, had been found in a swab from Destiny Warrior but had yet to be confirmed by testing the second sample.
Destiny Warrior will not be allowed to be nominated or compete in any race until the outcome of an inquiry or investigation.