Persecuted for a crime he didn't commit: Burke's tale sums up racing's plight

Over the years this column has given the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board plenty of stick for its inability to recognise the value of even the most rudimentary communications ingenuity.

It's a symptom that betrays the worst of the archaic Turf Club ethos that it is answerable to nobody, fuelling accusations of institutional, insular myopia. The situation has improved, but that 'closed shop' remove from reality was at the root of Horse Racing Ireland's demand last February that the IHRB improve its "transparency and consistency of disclosure around reports into testing".

HRI cracked the whip with a raft of directives in the wake of the Viking Hoard scandal and such a public dressing down from the authority that funds the IHRB's integrity unit with state money cut to the quick.