Top New Zealand trainer Richard Brosnan has thrown his support behind Lance Justice, conditioner of the Inter Dominion Pacing Championship winner Smoken Up. Brosnan has gone on the record as saying that Justice used no medications at all during his recent stay at Brosnan's Ardmore stable prior to the Inter Dominion final
.
According to a report by the Sunday Star Times, Brosnan admitted that he does have the anti-inflammatory dimethyl sulphoxide in his stable, but stated that the substance had not been used at all for two years. Dimethyl sulphoxide is the substance Smoken Up returned a positive test for after his lucrative Inter Dominion victory.
"How it's there is mind-boggling but it's certainly nothing Lance has done. I know the guy uses nothing," Brosnan was quoted as saying.
"I stayed with him for a month in Melbourne with Pompallier and he never used anything the whole time I was there.
"He does feed well with vitamins and things, but his stance against drugs is well known. He says there's no place for drugs and, if there was any doubt about anything, he wouldn't use it. That's the way he is."
One of Smoken Up's owners, Alex Kay, was quoted in the article as saying, "Lance vows and declares he has never been within 100 yards of the stuff (dimethyl sulphoxide)."
On Friday, April 8 at Alexandra Park in Auckland, New Zealand, Smoken Up held off late bids by some solid horses to post a three-quarters of one length victory in the $800,000 Inter Dominion Pacing Championship.
(With files from the Sunday Star Times)
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