zonda: a forgotten scandal.

​Occasionally I read about a racing story that has escaped my attention since it burst onto the front pages of the racing newspapers – the Sporting Life and Sporting Chronicle were the trade papers back in 1961 – and then struggle to find any reference to it in any of the books I own or when I go on-line. No doubt in the coming days Google in its infinitely puzzling way will enlighten me with an asked-for video on the subject.
The curious case of Zonda was brought to my attention by Tim Fitzgeorge-Parker in his fascinating book ‘The Spoilsports. What’s Wrong With British Racing.’ The final chapter, of which, is dedicated to this curious doping scandal.
Zonda was a decent staying chaser in Ireland in the late fifties and early sixties, as proved by finishing second, carrying top-weight, in a Hennessey Gold Cup at Newbury. The race that proved so controversial was a minor conditions chase at Leopardstown, the Rathfarnham Chase. There were only 4-runners, one of which was the 1959 Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Roddy Owen. The bookmakers had little doubt it was a 2-horse affair, with Roddy Owen sent-off the 5/4 favourite, with Zonda at 7/4. Bookmakers noted no unusual betting patterns. Zonda won by 8-lengths, with Roddy Owen finishing a tired third after making a bad mistake at the eleventh-fence. From the perspective of today any suspicion would be on Roddy Owen finishing a sixteenth-length third after being backed from 6/4 to 5/4 at the off. Apart from the Gold Cup winner performing below par, there was nothing surprising in the result.
Dope testing the winners of all races in Ireland was a relatively new thing and the racecourse veterinary surgeon took samples of Zonda’s saliva and urine. To cut a long and distasteful story short, the nominated Irish analyst, Dr. Pennington returned a positive verdict for caffeine. Strangely, and this what is needed to be explained and never was explained, is that the check analysts, Herd and Munday found the sample positive for strychnine, with only a trace element of caffeine. It is a tale worthy of a Dick Francis novel or even Agatha Christie.
At the subsequent inquiry the Stewards were convinced of wrong-doing and banned Zonda’s trainer, Matt Geraghty, for 12-months, yet, though Zonda was disqualified from the Leopardstown race, he was allowed to continue racing in Ireland under the care of another trainer.
Zonda’s owner, Mrs. Peggy St John Nolan, was concerned the decision of the Irish Stewards would prevent her horse from running in England as she hoped to run Zonda in that year’s Cheltenham Gold Cup. She sought advice from Weatherby’s and was advised not to press for an English enquiry which, they considered, might go against her. Confusingly, she was advised by another authority that Zonda could not run without an English enquiry. She decided on asking for an enquiry.
The English stewards thought a fraudulent practice had taken place, whereas the Irish stewards had only considered the dope implication. Her dilemma having doubled, Mrs. Nolan sought the expert assistance of Brendon Thomas Farrelly, a Master of Science, a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and a university lecturer in clinical pathology in the faculty of Veterinary Medicine. He studied all the analytical reports on the Zonda case, drew-up submissions and set-off for London to argue his case. The English stewards were not particularly interested in anything he had to say, preferring to stick with the findings of the original analysts. The judgment was in alignment with the findings of the Irish Stewards except the English stewards went a step further in their punishment by banning Zonda from all British racecourses.
This was clearly a miscarriage of justice as there was no proof anyone connected with Zonda was guilty of introducing either strychnine or caffeine into his body. And that is without making any sense of how one expert had found caffeine to be drug the involved and the other strychnine. Or that Zonda had shown no improvement in form in the disputed Leopardstown race and went on to finish second in the Hennessey Gold Cup before either of the two enquiries were held.
I have little doubt enquiries both in Britain and Ireland are not as amateurish as demonstrated back in 1961. But in order to prove ‘how straight’ racing is in both jurisdictions, it is too easy to destroy reputations, as was the case with Ryan Price, a genius of a trainer, with the Hill House affair, where science finally proved that the horse made his own dope and that Price was innocent of all charges. What is forgotten when the story is told is that by having his licence to train taken from him, Ryan Price was denied the Grand National winner he so richly deserved as Anglo was in his care at the time and that he recommended he be sent to Fred Winter upon noy being allowed to train him himself.
The Zonda case reminded me of the Tramore case – Charles Byrnes (?) memory failure – where it could not be proved the trainer was in any way responsible for doping his horse.
It is so easy for stewards to apportion blame for the convenience of ‘proving’ how they are on top of the problem of doping.
Also, stewards’ decisions become an equine welfare issue when a horse is banned for life from racing. The horse is the most innocent party in these affairs and yet in banning the horse its existence could become precarious if it is unsuitable for any other equine discipline.