3 month ban for Queens trainer

NICKY HENDERSON has been banned from having runners for three months and fined £40,000 by the BHA over the use of a banned anti-bleeding drug.

The punishments follow a disciplinary inquiry in relation to a positive analysis returned from a sample taken from Moonlit Path, owned by the Queen, at Huntingdon on February 19.

The panel, formed of Tim Charlton QC, Patrick Hibbert-Foy and Sandra Arkwright, found the former champion trainer guilty of administering tranexamic acid to Moonlit Path before the race.

The details of the ban state that Henderson cannot make any entries for races from July 11 to October 10 inclusively. If any horse leaves Henderson's care and then runs in a race during the three-month period, it cannot return to his care until that period ends. Entries and declarations for races taking place after the endof the three-month period may be accepted.

The £40,000(R500,000) fine doubles the previous record of £20,000 handed to a trainer after Michael Wigham was fined under the non-triers' rule in February 2008.

Moonlit Path has subsequently been disqualified from the race.

In a prepared statement, Henderson said: "I am obviously hugely relieved that this saga has been concluded and, even though this seems a harsh sentence, we accept the findings and can now look forward again to the future and an exciting season ahead.

"As we are unable to have any runners for three months in our name, it is going to be all the more difficult to emulate last season's amazing results, but this will make us try even harder to do so.

"Although the medication should not have been administered, I can only reiterate, as the panel has accepted, that it was only given in the interest of the welfare of Moonlit Path herself.

"The support that I and all the family and the team have received over the last very testing weeks has been quite overwhelming and, under the circumstances, so much appreciated.

"My owners, fellow trainers, both National Hunt and Flat, so many friends, everyday racegoers have given us so much encouragement and backing. I can only thank you all enormously - and this includes my legal team. I simply cannot tell you how much it has meant to me and everybody at Seven Barrows."