Administering performance-enhancing substances to horses, aimed at improving their performance or reducing pain during a sporting performance is the gravest offence in horseracing sport, both in legal terms and in moral terms.

For this reason, I called on the anti-doping commission to double the number of anti-doping tests in 2015. There were 73 of these tests in 2015, 35 in 2014, and 37 in 2013.

These tests were aimed to have an expressly preventive character, since the last proven use of banned performance-enhancing substances in the Czech Republic was in 2011. A total of 8 samples of body fluids were collected at the two-day meeting at Pardubice on October 10th and 11th, 2015. They were sent to the authorized laboratory in Cologne, Germany at the Institut für Biochemie of Deutsche Sporthochschule Köln.

The secretariat of the Jockey Club of the Czech Republic received the results on November 9th, 2015.

According to the report, three of the samples were positive. These included the horses Čáriray and Nikas, trained by Stanislav Popelka.

The trainer or the owner of affected horses has the right to apply for an analysis of the B sample. The B sample is the second half of the body fluids that were collected and that were sent away at the same time as the first half of the samples (the A sample), and remained sealed in the deposit of an accredited laboratory.

Stanislav Popelka, trainer of the above-mentioned horses, has applied for an analysis of the B sample to be carried out, and for the specific amount of the banned substance to be specified. An application for an analysis of the sample was sent on November 13th, 2015 to the Central Laboratory for the United Kingdom, at Newmarket.

The results of the quantitative analysis will enable a judgement to be made and for conclusions to be drawn on the aim for administering the substances and the way in which they were administered: whether it was as a result of medication, contamination from the surroundings, etc.

On the part of the Jockey Club of the Czech Republic, no further steps can be taken until the results of the analyses of the B sample are received. In the event that there is definitive proof of the presence of banned substances, conclusions will be drawn and sanctions will be imposed by the Disciplinary Committee (Pořádková komise) of the Jockey Club of the Czech Republic.

Prague, 13. 11. 2015

JUDr. Ing. Jiří Charvát

President of the Jockey Club of the Czech Republic

(the official seal of the Jockey Club of the Czech Republic is attached)