Mr. Michael Grassick:

I am in favour of it. I will give the Deputy a little background to that. Pre-race testing started in other jurisdictions and then a number of high-profile Irish horses a couple of years ago went to race in the UK and were subject to pre-race testing. Only one or two horses in each race were pre-race tested. Some of those horses got upset because the test involves the taking of blood. A lot of horses are highly strung animals. I had complaints from the trainers involved that their horses ran poorly afterwards because the horses got upset before the race.

When Dr. Hillyer was introducing this in Ireland, we met her on several occasions and eventually came to an agreement. What we sought was that if the IHRB decides to carry out a pre-race test for a particular race, all the horses in the race would be tested. That is a fairer situation because all the horses in the race would be treated the same. That was agreed in November 2019. Pre-race testing has not yet taken place but I have been told it will take place in the coming weeks.