It’s always good to see racing make the mainstream news, right?

Well, maybe not all publicity is good publicity, after all. Ever since Jim Bolger announced in The Irish Field in October that drugs were the number one problem in racing, the rest of the sports media appears to have sat up and taken an interest.

The fact that there is so little other sport taking place at the moment could also be a factor, but over Christmas two leading Sunday broadsheet sports writers, Paul Kimmage and David Walsh, penned columns on the issue of drug testing in racing.

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Walsh said it appeared that the authorities here were not serious about catching the bad guys, while Kimmage gave the impression that the handling of positive test results left much to be desired.

To some within racing, it looked like the two writers – both of whom are regarded as experts in the area of exposing the abuse of drugs in sport – were stirring things where there was nothing to see. Others welcomed the questioning. Denis Egan, chief executive of the sport’s regulatory body, went on RTÉ to defend the drug testing regime.

Investigating

Walsh wrote a second column on the topic a week later, suggesting that it would take more than raceday drug tests to catch the bad guys. It would require police help to intercept deliveries and perhaps the tapping of phones, as the FBI did successfully when investigating American racing for drugs.

The subject died down for a bit then, until last week when details of a 2018 doping case were made public. But this was a drugs case with a twist, in that the horse in question, Viking Hoard, was given a sedative to prevent him from winning, rather than a performance enhancing substance to make him run faster.

Richard Forristal of the Racing Post suggested the case was a “red herring” in the overall drugs-in-racing conversation and he is probably right.

It’s the horses who pass the post in front we want to focus on, not the ones at the back, though it is important to drug test beaten favourites, especially when the betting trends tell a story.

But, for me, the really fascinating part of the Viking Hoard case was the evidence of lumpy five-figure bets being struck on the result of Irish races by unidentified individuals in far-flung locations who, it seems, have insider knowledge and can effectively ‘fix’ races.

This is potentially a far bigger story than drugs. If a definite link could be made to those shady online betting accounts and subsequent bank transfers or lodgements to people connected to Irish racing then that would be explosive stuff. But that would require a Garda or Criminal Assets Bureau investigation.

I have long suspected there was high stakes betting on Irish racing taking place in distant, untraceable markets, perhaps allowing high rollers to use inside information discreetly.

The Viking Hoard case gave us a tiny peek into that world. I dare say if that box was fully opened it would be far more damaging to racing than any drugs find in recent memory.