Brian Hennessy

BERTRAM Allen has been officially declared the winner of this year’s La Baule five-star Grand Prix, after the FEI this week confirmed that all results recorded by Swiss rider Steve Guerdat with his horse Nino Des Buissonnets at the French fixture, have been disqualified.

The FEI investigation cleared Guerdat of any wrongdoing after it emerged the top Swiss rider effectively fell victim to a case of poppy seed contamination in the feed used for his world-class horses.

Allen will now collect the €66,000 winner’s prize from La Baule along with an increased allocation of world ranking points. Allen is currently ranked at No.7 in the world, one place and just 14 points behind Guerdat, with the latest world rankings due to be published in the coming days.

World Cup champion Guerdat won the La Baule Grand Prix last May riding Nino Des Buissonnets, with Allen finishing second on the day with the 17-year-old stallion Romonov. However a sample taken from Guerdat’s horse at the event later returned positive for the banned substances codeine and oripavine and the controlled medication substance morphine.

Following an investigation, the FEI have concluded that the positive tests for Nino Des Buissonnets and from a second horse - Nasa, also ridden by Guerdat, along with a third horse, Charivari KG, ridden by Swiss young rider Alessandra Bichsel, were caused by feed contaminated by poppy seeds.

Traces of naturally occurring prohibited substances such as codeine, oripavine and morphine can be found in poppy seeds and the FEI have concluded that both Guerdat and Bichsel had used the same Swiss-based feed supplier and independent laboratory tests have proved that the feed was contaminated with poppy seeds.

Both Swiss riders have been cleared on any wrongdoing whatsoever by the FEI and the sports governing body have announced that no sanctions will be imposed on Guerdat or Bichsel other than the automatic disqualification of the horses’ results at the events where they tested positive. A provisional two-month suspension imposed on the horses in question expired on September 19th.

Interestingly, using testing technologies used by the Olympic Council, Ireland’s Connolly’s Red Mills is one of the few horse feed companies worldwide to utilise LCMSMS in its on-site laboratory which tests for naturally occurring prohibited substances (NOPS) to parts per billion. The Kilkenny company screens samples for seven key NOPS including caffeine, theobromine, morphine, hordenine, atropine, scopolamine and lupinine.

Meanwhile in a separate legal case, the FEI has imposed a provisional suspension on a Uruguayan endurance rider whose horse has tested positive for a prohibited substance.

Samples taken at a CEI** event in Uruquay, on August 8th last from the horse LG Muneerah ridden by Fernanda Villar to win the 120-kilometre competition, have returned positive for the banned substance Guanabenz, a sedative with analgesic effect.