Further testimony from Richard Moreau appeal hearing
by Melissa Keith
Last week, the Ontario Horse Racing Appeal Panel (HRAP) heard testimony from seven witnesses in the hearing of suspended trainer Richard Moreau. On day 1 (Dec. 10), Catherine Scarth, senior team leader of the confirmatory team at LGC Laboratories, Fordham, UK, and AGCO racing inspector Brian Nagano answered questions about the handling, shipping, and testing of blood samples taken from pacer Funtime Bayama (p, 3, 1:49.1s; $381,844). Now 4, the former Moreau trainee is the Woodbine Mohawk Park and Canadian record holder for 2-year-old pacing geldings (1:50.1s).
On day 2 (Dec. 11), Zoe Green, a senior scientist on the confirmatory analysis team at LGC Laboratories, Fordham, UK, took the stand.
“The majority of our work is based with equine matrices, whether that is blood or plasma or urine, so over the whole seven years [in her role at LGC], I have been detecting doping agents in those matrices,” she told counsel for the registrar Brendan van Niejenhuis.
She identified the certificate of analysis from Funtime Bayama’s confirmatory testing, which she had conducted for the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO).
“In this case, this is a positive certificate of analysis, to say that we analyzed the sample as described on here, and we found it had the presence of darbepoetin alfa or DPO in the plasma sample,” Green said.
She also said that she “carried out integrity checks on the whole package, including the courier box it arrived in.”
She stated that she took photos of opening the package, which arrived “in sort of a cardboard FedEx courier box and within that… a polystyrene box with a cellotape [i.e., packing tape] seal, and then inside the polystyrene box was the sample… two tubes that were wrapped in a bubble-wrap bag, and it also had a freeze pack… within the polystyrene box.”
She added that there was no evident tampering: “There weren’t any signs that it had previously been opened since it was sealed.”
Green said she notified senior team leader Catherine Scarth because there was no security bag with tamper-evident seal on the samples.
“We decided that we should document this as a deficiency, as insufficient integrity,” Green testified.
The two samples consisted of plasma “in screw-top centrifuge tubes” which Green noted had been “separated from the original blood vacu-containers or tubes by the laboratory [Bureau Veritas, BC] that carried out the screening analysis.” She told van Niejenhuis that the separated plasma was “suitable for testing,” although it “wasn’t frozen anymore” when the shipping container was opened July 10, 2024. Green said that because she was conducting confirmatory analysis for “stable” substances DPO and recombinant human EPO in the samples, thawing did not pose a problem. She noted that the plasma was frozen again “at -20 degrees [Celsius], as this is the best way to store a sample to avoid any degradation at all,” before testing began at LGC Laboratories on July 16, 2024.
Green said that the presence of a specific peptide (DPO T9) in the plasma samples was significant because it is not found naturally in horses.
Counsel for the appellant Jean-Marc MacKenzie next inquired about the chain of custody and integrity controls for the samples.
“If you were told to look for a specific concentration of a sample or a substance, could that not be subject to bias?” MacKenzie asked Green. She responded that knowing what to look for was a technical requirement for confirmatory testing.
MacKenzie asked about LGC’s status as “designated lab of the British Horseracing Authority” and the BHA’s requirement “that a sample sent to you has no identifying information about the trainer or the horse or the race” to prevent potential bias.
“Yes, it’s important that the sample is anonymous,” Green said.
Evidence presented by MacKenzie next showed a shipment letter from BV labs.
“It shows Richard Moreau Stables in Hamilton, ON, on June 11,” he pointed out.
“It does say that, yes,” said Green. “Yes, this was within the external paperwork that I was given.”
MacKenzie argued that the samples from Funtime Bayama were not handled according to usual protocol. “Is it usual for regulatory people to send samples to you, not in the original vacuum container for ‘A’ samples?” he asked.
“The majority of our ‘A’ samples arrive for screening analysis… in the original vacu-trainer,” replied Green.
MacKenzie asked about hemolysis (breakdown of red blood cells) in the samples.
“When we receive a blood sample, we’re looking for separation within that sample of plasma and then whole blood,” said Green. “We don’t specify a level of hemolysis. It’s more about whether a blood sample can be separated into distinct layers.”
Van Niejenhuis asked Green about Moreau’s name appearing on the paperwork that accompanied the samples.
“Had you ever heard of Richard Moreau before you performed this exercise?” he asked. “Did the name Richard Moreau have any impact on your work or on the findings that you certified in the certificate of analysis?”
Green replied “no” to both questions.
Dr. James Scarth, laboratory director for animal sports at LGC, next took questions from counsel for the registrar Alexandra Heine. He described the science of detecting DPO and recombinant human EPO in horses at length. On the topic of forensic integrity, Dr. Scarth stated, “[The laboratory will] be looking, very broadly, into two areas: They’ll be looking at the chain of custody and… the suitability for analysis… For this case, for the plasma… we’ll be assessing whether it was in an appropriate state to be analyzed.”
Dr. Scarth told Heine that the specific samples from Funtime Bayama met that standard: “From a practical standpoint, it was clear the state and sample was suitable for analysis.” He said he was unaware of the packaging on the sample, but “samples we’ve received from the same regulator [AGCO] here, before and after that have come in tamper-evident containers… I know that for a fact because I’ve also reviewed those cases personally and signed those off… For whatever reason, that didn’t happen in this case.”
MacKenzie asked Dr. Scarth about out-of-competition testing, tamper-proof packaging, and the anonymity of samples.
“Most years, we have a number of cases where someone accidentally has written the name of a horse or something accidentally on paperwork,” said the scientist, who did not recall a trainer’s name specifically being revealed. “Some regulators will put, where they’ve done an out-of-competition visit, they’ll put the location.”
Dr. Scarth added that if “Richard Moreau Stables” had been flagged as identifying the trainer on the paperwork in question, “we would have redacted it… It just didn’t enter my mind that that would be the name of the trainer. I don’t remember seeing it. Obviously, it’s there.”
He stated that the samples were already flagged for “insufficient integrity” on arrival.
“Whilst it is an oversight, I will admit, I can see why it happened,” he told MacKenzie. “It’s not an obvious one. I don’t personally think it’s a high-risk concern.”
Dr. Pamela Chesterfield, AGCO manager of veterinary services, told Heine that she is not currently the acting senior manager, “just in the last couple days.” She confirmed that she, inspector Brian Nagano, and Laura Matthews of the Ontario Provincial Police attended Moreau’s farm for out-of-competition blood collection on June 10, 2024. Dr. Chesterfield recalled having a “nice conversation… about his retirement” with Moreau, after she collected blood and Nagano collected hair from Funtime Bayama.
Dr. Chesterfield testified that she, Nagano and Matthews “went to one more farm that day, for… one single horse,” spending “probably 15 minutes total” before she returned to her home office. “As with every horse I sample, they passed the samples to Inspector Nagano. Inspector Nagano was the one in charge of taking all of those samples at the end of the day to secure and to ship.”
Hein asked the veterinarian about the effects of DPO and EPO on horses.
“These substances pose a significant concern to improving the performance of a horse,” replied Dr. Chesterfield. “They also pose risks to the horse themselves. There’s the risk of having an auto-immune reaction, where the horse can get very, very ill, and it could be a long process of where the horse gets sicker and sicker, because the body attacks its own red cells. As well, there’s a risk to the public perception of horse racing, and our social license to operate.”
The initial part of the appeal hearing concluded Dec. 12, with Tyler Durand (AGCO racing senior manager regulatory compliance) and Devan Loganathan (supervisor research services, Bureau Veritas Laboratories) appearing via Zoom.
As of publication deadline, no decision has been made, nor have additional dates been scheduled for the remainder of the hearing, which HRAP chair Stanley Sadinsky stated would likely pick up in early 2026.
