Security chief claims pressure from trainers compromised his ability to do job

The High Court was on Tuesday told that the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board's head of security, Chris Gordon, has been compromised in his role since October 2015 because of pressure put on the governing body by the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association. The claim was made by Gordon from the witness stand.

Gordon also alleged that the Department of Agriculture has withdrawn its assistance from random yard inspections and expressed its disappointment over the relationship between the IHRB head of security and the IRTA.

Gordon, who is suing the IRTA, suggested that the organisation was satisfied by the manner in which his position has been compromised in recent years.

A random yard inspection on Liz Doyle's premises at Kitestown House, County Wexford, in March 2014, is the catalyst of animosity between the two parties.

Gordon claims it was falsely alleged in a letter drafted by the IRTA that he attempted to entrap Doyle into an admission of wrongdoing during the inspection.

Noel Meade: 'Thanks to this initiative people will have unlimited virtual access to many training yards across the country while staying safe at home.”Credit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

A subsequent interview with IRTA chairman Noel Meade, published in the Irish Field newspaper on August 9, 2014, prompted Gordon to take legal action.

In that article, Meade was quoted as saying: "Unfortunately, the behaviour of some of the inspectors when they come to the yards hasn't actually been professional.

"They're not treating people properly. We as trainers have no problem being looked at. We just don't like being treated like criminals when they come to do it. I think 99 per cent are 100 per cent straight and that's the way we'd like to be treated.

“Unfortunately some of these inspectors haven't behaved that way. And that has annoyed us quite a lot."

Gordon, a former Garda superintendent who became the security head following early retirement from the force in 2010, told the court that this was a personal attack on his previously unblemished reputation.

It was also alleged by Gordon that Michael Grassick, chief executive of the IRTA, drafted a petition to have him ousted from his role within the IHRB.

Michael Grassick: alleged to have drafted a petition to have Chris Gordon ousted from his role within the IHRBCredit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

It was further alleged that Grassick made false claims about Gordon’s conduct during the inspections of other trainers' premises.

Gordon said he accepted mistakes were made in relation to the random yard inspection of Doyle’s premises in March 2014.

The conviction in 2013 of John Hughes, a retired department vet, for possession of 6kg of Nitrotain at his Carlow home, sparked a number of random inspections with the governing body, then operating as the Turf Club, using Hughes’s book of evidence.

Some of the information in the book of evidence related to bank lodgements and payslips, some of which had initials beside payments.

Alongside a payment of €200 in the book of evidence read the initials LD. The court heard that during a meeting with department officials, the chief executive of the IHRB, Denis Egan, had at an earlier date written “Liz Doyle” followed by a question mark.

On the day of the inspection at Doyle's yard, the trainer questioned why she was selected for a random stable inspection. In an effort to offer some transparency, Gordon says he showed Doyle, who was accompanied by her mother Avril Doyle, a former Fine Gael MP, the book of evidence that had been altered by Egan.

Avril Doyle subsequently rejected Egan’s explanation that he had handwritten the name on the book of evidence alongside the initials LD, while Liz Doyle complained to Gordon.

Egan later wrote saying that Ms Doyle was in good standing with the Turf Club.

It was later claimed by Gordon from the witness stand that the IHRB was not only operating on intelligence gathered from the Hughes case but also from information they received on up to 12 or 13 trainers in an anonymous letter sent to them and the Department of Agriculture in October 2013.

The IRTA are contesting the allegations and the hearing, which is being heard by Mr Justice Bernard Barton, continues in the High Court on Thursday morning.

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