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THE disqualification of four horses from the Olympics for doping may show a trend that threatens to destroy equestrian, a senior official says.
Sven Holmberg, head of the International Equestrian Federation (FEI) jumping committee, alluded to the long campaign from within the IOC to eject horse sports from the Olympics line-up.

“This is certainly a serious blow to the sport and we are well aware of the possible implications for the sport and its position in the Olympics,” he said.

“The four cases tested positive for the same substance. I don’t know if we can say it’s a trend but it contributes to the seriousness of the case.”

Bernardo Alves of Brazil, Christian Ahlmann of Germany, Denis Lynch of Ireland and Tony Andre Hansen of Norway were disqualified when their horses tested positive for capsaicin, a numbing agent.

The incident resurrected the spectre of Athens in 2004 and Sydney in 2000, when show jumping team and individual medals were re-allocated due to doping.

It has also again raised questions about the continued inclusion of elite horse sports - which cost more money and attract more competitors than any other Olympic sport - in the Games.

IOC president Jacques Rogge attended the final on Monday of the team show jumping event at the centre of the scandal, as the Norwegians will have to hand back their bronze medal if the B-sample from Hansen’s horse returns positive.

Rogge’s timing was a relief for the FEI as the final went to a crowd-pleasing jump-off, unlike the dressage which had spectators sleeping in the stands.

This doping scandal will not please the doctor who has put cleanliness at the centre his Olympics presidency.

And Hong Kong leaders who had hoped these events would allow them to bask in a little reflected Olympic glory will be angry and disappointed.

The Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) spent about 150 million US dollars on these events after Beijing passed them on to the former British colony, along with a little political kudos, because of Chinese quarantine issues.

While most facilities revert to the racing industry, the legacy officials said the Olympics would leave behind has dissolved.

Horse sports, never popular in Hong Kong, look dirty and show jumping looks cruel.

Irish team vet Marcus Swail told AFP treatments containing the banned susbstance, capsaicin, were commonplace and “four grooms from other teams” had approached him to say they also used products containing the numbing agent.

The horses in question were among 60 the FEI said were tested - 20 each from eventing, dressage and jumping of a total of 218. Samples were analysed at HKJC labs, considered among the world’s best.

A club source wondered if the HKJC’s ability to detect the agent had been underestimated as no positive tests for capsaicin have been returned before now though it has been testable for two years.

The substance is a by-product of chilli and its use points not only to widespread doping but cruelty in the training regimes for show jumpers.

It causes first hypersensitivity and then numbness, much like chilli does to the mouth and lips.

Applied to the legs, it would cause the animal to lift higher to avoid hitting on the fences.

Denis Lynch, who came here with a team already aware of Ireland’s poor reputation and desperate to avoid controversy, produced a pot of linement he said he used to warm his horse’s muscles during training.

Lynch did not inform his team vet he was using the product, called Equiblock — the label of which clearly states: “Contains capsaicin. Will not test positive”.

Veteran show jumper Ian Millar has cleared almost every obstacle in a stellar career that now spans nine Olympic Games.

But he can’t clear the lump in his throat.

Last March, Lynn, Millar’s wife of 39 years, died of cancer after a lengthy illness. Millar is at the Beijing Games without her, but she’s not far from his thoughts. Ask him about her, and he looks as though he’s just been wounded.

Five months after her death, Millar, 61, is still uncomfortable talking about his grief. “Oh,” he said, clearly pained. “Difficult is an understatement.

“Our family doctor said to me that the earliest you’ll even begin to see things getting better is six months, and ‘I’ll bet you it’s closer to two years.’ ”

As the days dragged on, and Millar’s thoughts turned to the Olympics, where he has never won a medal, he came to understand the doctor’s wisdom. Perhaps, at six months, only the numbness disappears.

The Millars had had a whirlwind romance. Lynn Doran was a rider, too, based a few kilometres from the farm where Millar worked. After their third date in May, they decided to get married in September.

Lynn, who had a degree in nursing, had an interest in every aspect of show jumping: teaching, horse care, riding, breeding, training and buying and selling.

Lynn was a direct person and a shrewd horsewoman and buyer. Faith Berghuis, one of the owners of Millar’s famous horse, Big Ben, once called her the Rock of Gibraltar. She was the quiet rock behind Millar’s success.

“The marriages in this sport are very different,” Millar said. “We’re so close. All aspects of our lives are so totally intertwined.”

Doran’s father, Hugh, owned a construction firm. When Millar heard that he’d better get a job if he wanted to marry Lynn, he became a stockbroker, part of which involved spending three months on Wall Street in New York. They both worked through the week, but competed at show-jumping events on the weekends.

Money was scarce. Eventually, together, they bought a beat-up old farm that they called Millar Brooke near Perth, Ont. Now, it’s a showplace with its own equine hospital.

There, in March, Lynn died, with her family around her. Children Jonathon, 33, and Amy, 31, were by her side in the weeks leading up to her death. Ian had spent the winter at the winter show-jumping circuit in Florida. Lynn would not allow him to sacrifice the tour to be with her. Occasionally, he would fly home, then back to Florida. The family surrounded her like a net, ensuring she was never alone.

Millar was to have competed at a $75,000 Nations Cup in Florida in March, but cancelled and headed home as his wife became quite ill. In his absence, the event was dedicated to Lynn. Without Millar in the lineup, the Canadian team finished second, although they’d won the two previous years.Millar has hardly been home since. He’s immersed himself in work, teaching clinics for two weeks, heading to Europe for two weeks, home a week, off to Spruce Meadows in Calgary and onward.

But work is a release, and it was Lynn’s wish that he pursue his Olympic dream. Although he’s won back-to-back World Cup finals, nine medals at eight Pan American Games and ridden in six world championships, Millar has never won an Olympic medal.

Millar’s quest for a medal came closest with a fourth-place finish in the team events at the Olympics of 1984 and 1988. And he was tied for fifth place in the individual final before the final round at the Sydney Olympics in 2000 when a high wind blew a fence down. Officials sounded a signal to stop him, but Millar’s mount, Dorincord, thought he was finished so close to the exit. Confused, he knocked down a couple of rails, and they finished 13th.

In his three Olympics with his famous mount, Big Ben, Millar finished 14th, 15th and 54th. In 1996, he was 47th.

“This is very important what we’re doing here,” Millar said of a Canadian team that has resurrected itself from the ashes of a couple of decades of dismal results. “Lynn would have wanted no interruption in that for sure. If I’d said forget it, Lynn would have been very disappointed with me. It’s not an option.”

And he wants to do it, too. He needs to do it.

“If I ever stopped, I don’t know where I’d ever start again,” Millar said. “So I’d better not stop. Don’t want to know. Got to keep going.”

Millar said he has at least one more Olympics in him. He wants to compete in London in 2012. And his fondest wish would be to compete on a team that included his son and daughter, who now have promising young mounts on the verge of becoming “everything,” he said.

The three of them rode on a team in 2000 at Spruce Meadows, with the fourth rider being Jill Henselwood, who considers Millar her mentor. It was like a family outing.

On Monday, the Canadian horses arrived in Hong Kong via Anchorage. The riders will soon follow. Millar will have an extra obstacle to clear.

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