IT came as a tremendous shock to hear that East Ilsley trainer Hughie Morrison was being charged by the BHA with a serious doping offence, after one of his runners tested positive for the anabolic steroid nandrolone after a random test taken from Our Little Sister at Wolverhampton in January.

Since the hastily executed disqualification of Godolphin trainer Mahmood Al-Zarooni in 2013, there has been a zero tolerance attitude to anabolic steroids in British racing, and Morrison could face a 10-year ban if found guilty.

Like all good Dick Francis thrillers though, of which this has echoes, the bare facts tell only a fraction of the story.

The bad news for Morrison is that, unlike some positive tests which can be attributed to contaminated feed or bedding, accidental ingestion, natural production by the horse, or allowable veterinary treatments which haven’t cleared the system within an accepted withdrawal period, the presence of nandrolone in a filly (or gelding for that matter) can only be attributed to deliberate doping.

That information appears damning, all the more so since “strict liability” lies with the trainer in such cases, so the younger son of the second Lord Margadale is set to be punished even if he can convince the authorities that the offence was carried out without his knowledge or permission.

STRAIGHT MAN

The good news, such as it is, revolves around the belief among the wider racing community that Hughie Morrison is pretty much the straightest man in the sport and the notion that he would deliberately use performance-enhancing drugs is deemed ridiculous.

Cynics, of course, tend to see fire even when there is no smoke, but the specific facts of this case suggest it’s enormously unlikely that the trainer would want to risk his reputation and livelihood by doping Our Little Sister.

In plain terms, the now retired filly was extremely moderate as a racehorse, was used primarily as a vehicle for apprentices Theodore Ladd and Charlie Bennett, aiding their development as riders.

The race in question saw her go unbacked and finish last. It is simply inconceivable that she was somehow doped to win, either with the trainer’s consent, or by outside agencies who sought to gain access to her via stable employees.

This is what brings us into Dick Francis territory; if we conclude that she was deliberately doped, using a drug which, if discovered, would see draconian punishment meted out to the trainer, is the obvious conclusion that she was deliberately got at, not to affect her performance, but simply to get caught?

That is certainly an intriguing angle, and Morrison stacks up well as an archetypal Dick Francis hero.

His father owned and bred Oaks winners Juliet Marny and Scintillate, and Hughie has perfect conservative credentials, but like the author’s straight-laced paragons, he doesn’t flaunt his breeding, and when asked to name his hero in racing, is more likely than not to nominate stable staff as those most deserving of praise.

UNMASKing the VILLAIN

As in the novels, he faces a race against time to unmask the villain of the piece, and to that end has offered a cash reward for information which could reveal the real culprit, as well as taking the matter to the police, who will be officious and/or bungling if true to stereotype.

It sounds like a jolly romp for fans of racing fiction but it’s deadly serious for Morrison and his employees. The BHA announcement of the case included an appeal for anyone with information to make contact via the confidential hotline RaceStraight, suggesting that the authority has sympathy with the trainer’s predicament, but sympathy alone will not suffice.

Of course, finding the smoking gun is one thing but establishing motive is another. Approaching the issue from the other end suggests that a disgruntled employee, rival trainer or other persons unknown might wish to besmirch Hughie Morrison’s reputation, but deliberate doping is not an obvious way of going about it.

It transpires that the filly could have been got at around the time of her previous racecourse appearance at Southwell in January, when the trainer and his staff were attending another runner who was injured. That gives a would-be doper the opportunity, but to believe that the act happened at Southwell requires an acceptance that the doper was ready to commit the act there, trusting that Our Little Sister would be subject to a random drug test in the future.

In the circumstances, this seems a remarkably haphazard way of carrying out such an act of villainy and the vast majority of beaten horses are not tested. For someone to take the risk of being caught committing the crime, with only a small chance that it would be successful in its aim, makes the scenario look almost as strange as the accusation against the trainer, suggesting that there must be more to the case than meets the eye, or at least that’s how we as readers of pulp fiction are trained to think.

Did the perpetrator somehow tip the authorities off so that the “random” test was not so random, or did the doping take place in the trainer’s yard, and if so, how? Who has it in for our dashing protagonist?

In the novel, all is revealed in the final, thrilling chapter, but in real life, such questions may never be adequately answered, such as in the case of Charles Chapman, warned off in a celebrated doping case in 1930 despite the widespread belief that he had no part in the act itself, and though he had the support of Sir Gordon Richards and the Dukes of Richmond and Norfolk, he was never able to regain his licence. That affair was deemed a great miscarriage of natural justice, and it’s to be hoped that this latest case is concluded in happier circumstances.