'Lifelong friend' not planning to train entire Tony Martin string during suspension

Ger Keane will not be training all of Tony Martin's team during his three-month suspension for breaking anti-doping rules.

The Trim-based trainer, who is the father of Ireland's champion Flat jockey Colin, had three former Martin-trained runners make their debuts for him on Tuesday with Presenting Max doing best of them by finishing fourth in the 2m4½f maiden hurdle at Punchestown.

Belles Feuilles was the first former Martin inmate to run for Keane, trailing in last of the eight runners in the 1m2½f handicap at Roscommon on Monday evening.

Keane sends Aurea Fortuna to Limerick on Thursday evening to contest the 2m3½f beginners' chase. The five-year-old, who has been unplaced in four starts for Martin, runs in the familiar silks of Debbie Breslin.

However, not all of Martin's string have been transferred over to Keane and the trainer is just keen to help out a lifelong friend.

Keane said: "It's a short-term thing. Tony is a lifelong friend of mine and we go back a long way, so I said I'd help him out. I only have a few of his, definitely not all of them. It won't be for long and it's just until things are sorted out. Tony has been very good to me over the years and he needed a dig out."

Martin started serving a three-month suspension last Thursday when he was unsuccessful in his quest for a judicial review into his case from the High Court. He will not be permitted to have runners in his own name until mid-August.

Tony Martin: suspended until mid-AugustCredit: Alan Crowhurst (Getty Images)

The multiple Cheltenham Festival-winning trainer found himself in hot water after Firstman tested positive for lidocaine, a local anaesthetic prohibited on racedays, following a 2m handicap win at Dundalk in January of last year.

Martin was originally hit with a suspended sentence of six months, along with a €10,000 fine, but the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board appealed against the leniency of that punishment and was successful with only three months of his ban suspended.

That suspension was due to start on Wednesday, but Martin went to the High Court seeking a judicial review so he was allowed to run Fairytale Of New York and Squire Ohara at Tipperary on the day his suspension was supposed to start. Neither troubled the judge, finishing tenth and fifth respectively.

The suspension started 24 hours later than planned after Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy ruled against carrying out a judicial review of his case.

Martin has been a major player at the Galway summer festival over the last few decades, winning four Galway Hurdles since 2014, and it is not yet known who will train the majority of his team for that banquet in Ballybrit which begins on July 29.

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