The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) is seeking to amend its Rules of Racing to avoid weakening the ability for penalties to be imposed for breaching the equine anti-doping rules.

It follows a decision by the independent appeal board to dismiss a BHA appeal against a previous independent disciplinary panel decision not to impose a penalty on trainer Philip Hobbs for breaching racing’s strict liability rules. The Panel decided that Hobbs had established the administration of the drug was unintentional and had taken all reasonable precautions so he should not be penalized.

“This appeal was brought to seek clarification in relation to the interpretation of Rule (G)11.4,” said the BHA’s Chief Regulatory Officer Jamie Stier. “Whilst the Appeal Board’s judgment does not challenge the principle of strict liability, it has shown there is an issue with the way the Rules of Racing are currently written. In order to address the point raised by the Appeal Board, there needs to be an amendment to the current rules.”

The appeal board disagreed with the BHA that the current rule logically requires a responsible person to establish the probable source of the prohibited substance to show that it was not administered intentionally and all reasonable precautions had been taken. They stated that “if Responsible Persons were to be subject to that regime, we would firmly have expected the existence of a Rule expressly imposing it.” As a result the BHA will now explore expressly setting out this principle in the rules