Jockey stood down after failed test for banned substance

Danny Grant is understood to have tested positive for a banned substance and was subsequently denied permission by the stewards to take up his intended mounts at Navan and Dundalk last weekend. It is the third occasion Grant has failed a drugs test.

He tested positive for a metabolite of cocaine on the opening day of the Flat season at the Curragh in March 2014 and was handed a two-year ban, with the final 18 months suspended. He was also banned for a month having failed a drugs test in October 2009.

Grant had been booked by Shay Barry to ride Mel Biechif Diane in a maiden at Navan on Saturday and was also to partner Jessamine in a 1m2f handicap for his main employer Pat Flynn. The stewards stepped in and stopped him from riding both, and it was a similar story at Dundalk on Sunday, when he was forced to forfeit his ride on Danse Rouge in a mile handicap.