Greyhound Racing Act 2019

• Permanent Page URL

Administration of substances to greyhounds

27. (1) The Board may, after consultation with the Minister, make regulations for the control, restriction, prohibition or administration of substances to a greyhound in relation to the following:

(a) specifying substances or classes of substances to be prohibited or controlled;

(b) testing of a greyhound for the presence of performance affecting substances;

(c) listing substances or classes of substances that may not be administered to a racing greyhound;

(d) listing substances or classes of substances that may be administered to a racing greyhound and setting the circumstances and conditions attaching to such administration;

(e) setting residue limits for substances or metabolites of substances that may be found in samples taken from a racing greyhound by reference to the substance and the nature of the sample taken from the greyhound;

(f) providing for the periods following the administration of a substance during which a greyhound may not participate in greyhound racing, trials or sales;

(g) requiring the maintenance of records in relation to the medication, treatment, training and racing of a racing greyhound to which a substance referred to in regulations made under this section had been administered and the provision of such records to the Board;

(h) prohibiting or controlling the use of a medicine or a class of medicines regardless as to whether it affects performance or not;

(i) setting down the processes or procedures by which substances may be determined to affect the performance of greyhounds;

(j) declaring the thresholds (if any) at which such substances in any samples taken from greyhounds are to be regarded as at a level below which the substance in question does not affect racing or does not otherwise have an effect on the greyhound, and which level may therefore be considered irrelevant;

(k) methodologies by which such thresholds may be determined, including such reasonable methods as may be used to decide the levels, having regard to the advice and recommendations of the Scientific Advisory Committee;

(l) declaring thresholds where it is considered desirable to ensure consistency with other greyhound racing jurisdictions with which Irish greyhound racing is connected, or where agreement has been reached by the Board with other greyhound racing jurisdictions;

(m) controls to be operated by persons participating in greyhound racing (within the meaning of section 43 (4)) in relation to greyhounds in training or at races or trials, or for sale, and for the records which owners or trainers or those other persons keep;

(n) controls to be operated at greyhound race tracks in relation to doping and medication control;

(o) taking a sample from a greyhound, whether in training or at races or trials, or for sale, and whether randomly or on suspicion or by any other reasonable method of selection;

(p) analytical processes or methods by which samples or other things may be determined to contain a substance, for the processes or methods by which the levels of substances in such samples or other things may be determined, and for the acceptable level of accuracy which may be associated with such determinations, having regard to the advice and recommendations of the Scientific Advisory Committee;

(q) providing that analytical processes or methods may be adopted to ensure consistency with analytical processes or methods used in other greyhound racing jurisdictions;

(r) approval of laboratories for the analysis of samples taken from a greyhound under regulations made under this section;

(s) publication of the results of any analysis and for the publication of such information as is considered appropriate in relation to the greyhound in question.

(2) The Board may publish details (including the name and address of the owner and trainer and the name of the dog and of the substance) of breaches of substances regulations in respect of which a racing sanction has been imposed.

(3) Where a sample from a greyhound is found to have present—

(a) a prohibited substance, or

(b) a substance for which a maximum residue limit has been set and that limit has been exceeded,

under regulations made under this section, that greyhound shall be disqualified from racing and trialling—

(i) until such time as it passes a subsequent test with negative results, and

(ii) where the substance is a substance, or belongs to a class of substances, in respect of which the Board has decided, having regard to a recommendation of the Scientific Advisory Committee, that an additional disqualification period should apply, during which period such substance may continue to be capable of affecting the performance of the greyhound, for such period after that test.

(4) A person who contravenes a regulation made under this section, and which is stated in the regulations to be a racing sanction provision, or races or trials a greyhound in contravention of subsection (3), commits a sanction breach of the Racing code and is liable to a racing sanction.