Italian-born, Group 1-winning Thoroughbred trainer Andrea Marcialis has been banned by France Galop until April of 2025 for three counts of horse doping and two counts of running a shadow training operation, reports the Racing Post. The trainer also faces criminal charges on counts of doping horses, organized crime, and forgery, with his actions spanning at least 31 races.
An incident at Saint-Cloud on Aug. 31, 2020 initiated the police investigation. Marcialis was reported to racecourse officials after being seen carrying a syringe from the car park. His two runners that day were tested before and after their races. One, Bosioh, returned a positive in the pre-race urine sample, but was negative post-race. France Galop still issued a ban for the incident, noting that “the facts being sufficient to establish and constitute an act of deliberate doping on a racecourse.”
The other two doping counts for which Marcialis received bans involved six horses who received injections without prior consultation from a vet and without prescription, and the administration of corticosteroids to four more horses within three days of them racing.
Marcialis' suspensions for shadow training operations included two separate instances. The first was for his role in running horses under the name of an 80-year-old trainer, Jean-Claude Napoli, with the help of his sister, Elisabetta, and the second was for shadow training under the name of Chantilly-based Russian licence holder, Igor Endaltsev.
Read more at racingpost.com.
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