Egan: Meade hits out with declaration of procedure on the Turf Club agenda

Turf Club chief executive Denis Egan has revealed the declaration of wind operations, which will be made available to the public in Britain from January 19, 2018, is on the regulator's agenda.

However, chairman of the trainers’ association Noel Meade has admitted he would be against a similar ruling being brought into effect in Ireland and has labelled such an implementation as "just another hoop for trainers to jump through".

He said: “I would prefer if this did not come in because there are just so many different types of wind operations that it would be unfair to tar each horse with the same brush.

"There are very minor wind procedures you can do with horses and there are also extensive ones and I don’t think it's right that we put each one in the same bracket.

“I’d imagine it would meet with a lot of resistance in Ireland and I’m a bit dubious about the whole thing, if I’m being honest, as I don’t think it will be the saving grace that the punters might think it will be for them either."

Noel Meade: 'I’m a bit dubious about the whole thing'Credit: Caroline Norris

He added: “Fair enough, when you read in the paper after a horse has won and it says he has had a wind operation, it seems as though such information would have been handy beforehand. But you can be sure there’s plenty of others who've had no change in form, or are even worse off for having a wind operation.

“Training horses has changed a lot down through the years and there are just so many hoops you need to jump through before you can get to the track, and this is another one. I’d also find it hard to understand how we would go about policing the whole thing.”

Policing the declaration of wind procedures was one of the main reasons why the Turf Club has deliberated on making a definite decision for so long, according to Egan.

He said: “The stewards have been discussing this but they haven’t come to any final decision. We'll have another look at it in the context of what has now been implemented in Britain. It's been on and off the agenda here for a number of years.

“It's not a straightforward decision to make and the difficulty is how such a thing could be policed. I know that is one reason why the stewards here were taking their time. But it’s certainly on our agenda.”

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