O’Brien On the Cobalt Defensive

Trainer Danny O’Brien, who along with fellow Victoria, Australia-based conditioners Peter Moody and Mark Kavanagh was revealed this week to have had horses in his care test over the permitted threshold for cobalt, was critical of the threshold set for the substance–200 micrograms per liter of urine–by Racing Victoria last April when speaking on SEN Radio’s ‘Racing Fix’ yesterday. 

“We rushed into it [the cobalt threshold] and we’ve seen some massive collateral damage to racing,” O’Brien said. “Our horses were very marginally over the threshold and it appears that’s happened over a period of time on a build up of their normal raceday supplement and treatments. We’ve got a fair idea now about what has happened and we’ve certainly done nothing different than what we’ve done for a number of years.” 

O’Brien added, “I can assure you and your listeners that myself, Mark Kavanagh or Peter Moody have done absolutely nothing wrong–there’s been no Cobalt administered in any shape or form to any of our horses. I’d never heard of Cobalt seven days ago other than reading about it when they put in the rule about it.” 

Click here for a feature in yesterday’s TDN on cobalt in the U.S.