'Public perception of racing is terrible' - I'm sick of the stench, aren't you?

We do not know for a fact who administered a sedative to Viking Hoard which was 100 times the screening limit, but here are a few facts: Newstalk is Ireland's second most popular radio station, with 426,000 tuning in every day, and Joe Molloy, their multiple award-winning presenter of Off The Ball, said on Tuesday night: "The public perception of Irish racing, or horseracing in general, is terrible when it comes to integrity."

The Irish Times' chief sportswriter Malachy Clerkin, who has covered everything from the shameless spat in Saipan between Roy Keane and Mick McCarthy to the wacky world of Conor McGregor, tweeted: "This case is wild."

Rishi Persad, on Nick Luck's daily podcast on Wednesday morning, said: "This incident is enough to damage the sport for a very, very long time."