A RACEHORSE that drank coffee has been disqualified after failing a drugs test.
Trainer Nick Smart said the ‘silly’ reason behind the shock positive was a coffee station near the horse’s feed.
Mr Coyne finished second in a race at Ballarat racecourse in Australia on August 23 last year.
He gave a post-race urine sample which contained caffeine and its metabolites theophylline, parazanthine and theobromine.
Stewards charged Smart for a having a runner with a prohibited substance in a sample.
The trainer, who has since changed stables since the incident, said his team conducted their own investigation into exactly what happened.
And he said the unfortunate placing of a coffee machine near the horse was almost certainly to blame.
He told racing.com: “It was a real mystery to us.
“When we looked into it, and it sounds silly, but our coffee set-up is right near the feed room.
“It was right at the feed door with the coffee and everyone used to make their coffee every day.
“So I put it down to someone has spilled something in a bucket and it went like that.
“We went through every other possibility, and that’s what we think it is.
“We have actually changed stables since and the coffee is nowhere near the feed room anymore.
“I haven’t given the horse anything but I understand that it’s in the system.”
Smart is set to face the Victorian Racing Tribunal at a later date to find out if he will receive any punishment.
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