Royal Ascot-winning trainer’s ‘life and career destroyed in a minute’ after ‘unfathomable’ finding
A ROYAL Ascot-winning trainer has seen his ‘life and career destroyed in a minute’ – as he faces a two-year ban from racing.
Top handler George Weaver has been provisionally banned after one of his fillies tested positive for a banned substance.
Although his legal representative disputes the findings and alleges the horse failed the test after coming into contact with a yard worker.
Weaver, who won last year’s Queen Mary Stakes with 9-1 Crimson Advocate at the Royal meeting, has been ordered to disband his stable with immediate effect.
A B sample confirmed Weaver’s Anna’s Wish had tested positive for metformin, a medicine reportedly used by more than 20 million people to treat diabetes.
Anna’s Wish finished third in a $100,000 race at Aqueduct racecourse in New York in March.
Weaver is the seventh trainer to be hit with a positive for metformin since a new body took over drugs testing in the US in May last year.
Weaver’s attorney Drew Mollica claimed the groom who was caring for Anna’s Wish took the drug.
He slated the finding and claimed it had unfairly tarnished the trainer’s reputation.
In a scathing attack, he told Thoroughbred Daily News: “It is unfathomable to me that we as an industry can allow this organisation to simply take an axe to a man’s career and his life and with the swing of that axe destroy it in a minute.
“It’s beyond belief. Metformin should not be a banned substance and the groom is on metformin.
“We got no heads up (about the positive B sample), no anything.
“You’d think that if the B sample came back positive they would call and say, ‘listen, we’re going to do this, but you have three days to take care of everything.’
“You’d think that’s the way human beings would act. I have never dealt with a system like this before.
“There are 75 horses that George has that are spread around the country that need care.
“It would seem prudent to give us notice beforehand that this was about to happen.
“To the zealots that run this organisation the well-being of those horses should be more paramount than a ‘gotcha’ letter.”
Weaver has the right to appeal but cannot train horses in the meantime.
Alexa Ravit of the Horseracing Integrity and Welfare Unit said: “It should be noted that Weaver was notified of the metformin finding in the A Sample more than a month ago.
“And that a provisional suspension would be imposed on him if B Sample analysis confirmed the A Sample finding.”
Mollica added: “I’m going to talk to George about that and we’ll try to lift the suspension.
“This case is everything that’s wrong with this system. They’re just taking an axe to a guy and have just decided to destroy him.”
Weaver’s finding comes in the same week that a Cheltenham Festival-winning trainer was banned after a High Court ruling.