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AN Oldham veterinary surgeon, Mr Paul Evans, wrongly advised a client that she could administer norethindrone to suppress oestrus in a greyhound bitch entered to run in a National Greyhound Racing Club ( ngrc )-accredited race.
At a hearing from December 11 to 13, 2007, the rcvs Disciplinary Committee ruled that, as a practitioner with a special interest in greyhounds, Mr Evans should have known that the drug was not listed among the oestrus suppressants approved by the ngrc . Therefore, using it before the animal took part in a race was a breach of the club's rules.
For recommending an unauthorised medicine, which led to the client appearing before an ngrc stewards' inquiry, Mr Evans was found guilty of disgraceful professional conduct by the rcvs Disciplinary Committee. However, it decided to take no further action against Mr Evans, and also took the unusual step of publicly criticising the ngrc 's rules and disciplinary procedures.
Mrs Nicole Curtis, counsel for the Royal College, told the committee that administering any medicinal substance that could positively or negatively affect a greyhound's performance could potentially be a breach of rule 217 of the ngrc rules of racing. The only permitted exceptions were for authorised antiparasitic drugs, vaccines, and any one of four oestrus suppressants licensed for use in dogs at that time by the Veterinary Medicines Directorate ( vmd ). These were Delvosteron (Intervet), Durateston (Intervet) and Promone-E (Pfizer) injections and Ovarid (Schering-Plough Animal Health) tablets.
Mrs Curtis said that Mr Evans had recommended the unauthorised drug for use in three bitches owned by a professional greyhound trainer, Mrs Elaine Parker, at some date in early 2006. Random urine samples from two of those bitches, Confident Bunny and Checkinpost, taken at Sheffield racing stadium on February 20, 2006, and March 6, 2006, respectively, later tested positive for norethindrone metabolites.
At a stewards' inquiry on June 13, 2006, Mrs Parker was reprimanded and fined £450 per dog, while Mr Evans, who was not present at that hearing, was severely reprimanded and fined £750 per dog. The rcvs Disciplinary Committee was told that Mr Evans had refused to pay the fine as he was not...