Don’t jump to conclusions over the positive drugs test on the Queen’s filly ‘Estimate’

The news that one of the Queen’s horses, Estimate, tested positive for morphine, a banned substance, hit the headlines yesterday evening and unsurprisingly caused a bit of a stir. If the drugs test is confirmed by the British Horseracing Authority then the five year old filly would be disqualified from the 2014 Gold Cup at Ascot in which she came second (and which she won in 2013). She was last night still expected to be racing at Glorious Goodwood on 31^st July.

Morphine is a painkiller (or a sedative), rather than a performance-enhancing drug, and one that is permitted for use in training, but not in competition. The thing is, morphine is highly unlikely to have affected the performance of the horse at all. It is most likely that the official line coming from John Warren, the Queen’s racing advisor, is correct: her feed was accidentally contaminated – most probably with poppy seeds.