The rider and trainer of a horse who collapsed and later died at an endurance competition have been fined and suspended by the FEI Tribunal.
The horse, Derrom Texas trained by Sultan Albalawi, was found to have drugs in his system, which vets involved in treating him denied giving to the horse.
The 13-year-old gelding, ridden by Omar Alblawy, was 500m from the finish line at the CEI2* 120 endurance event at Al Ula, Saudi Arabia, when he collapsed on 7 February. Two official FEI vets attended the horse and he was treated on-site for more than two hours with intensive fluid therapy, sedation and steroid therapy.
“As the horse remained unable to stand, general anaesthesia was induced to allow safe transport by veterinary ambulance to the isolation stables, where treatment continued,” stated the FEI Tribunal report.
The blood sample taken on that day was collected before the induction of general anaesthesia for transport.
The Tribunal document added that the vets treating the horse gave him a number of drugs on the racecourse, but "expressly" confirmed that they did not give him phenylbutazone (bute), its metabolite oxyphenbutazone or butorphanol, a drug used to relieve pain and in anaesthetic premedication. These three drugs are controlled medications; they are used in veterinary medicine, but cannot be present during competition.
Derrom Texas died at the venue in the early hours of the following morning.
Both rider and trainer denied giving the horse the drugs.
During the investigation that followed, the trainer requested that the charges be “immediately dropped”. Among his claims were that the substances found in the horse “were either a direct consequence of the emergency treatment or the result of cross-reactions and metabolites arising from it” and that issues with the horse’s treatment, not any conduct of his, was the primary cause of the horse’s death.
The rider reiterated that he had not administered the substances at issue and that the horse was under exclusive control of the vets after he collapsed. He asked for complete disclosure of veterinary logs and questioned the decision for the horse to be transferred to an isolation stable, rather than the venue’s veterinary hospital.
In response, the FEI stated that “there is no plausible reason for the veterinarians to have omitted or misrepresented the treatment given”.
The Tribunal added that there was a lack of evidence for the rider and trainer’s claims, and that neither had established on the balance of probabilities how the drugs came to be in the horse’s system.
The rider and trainer were both suspended for six months, backdated to 13 April. They were each fined CHF 3,500 (£3,176) and ordered to each pay CHF 2,000 (£1,815) towards the FEI’s legal costs.
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