What Was On Sheikh Mohammed’s Jet Anyway?

New details are emerging about the type of equine drugs seized by UK officials from Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s jet in May, which triggered a subsequent raid in August at his Moorley Farm in Newmarket, England. According to articles in The Telegraph and The Guardian, the drugs found on the jet were marked as “horse tack” and included the following:

  • 5 boxes of Pentosan Gold
  • 5 doses of Naquapaste
  • 14 doses of Sarapin
  • 12 bottles of Dexaphenylarthite
  • Butapaste
  • 14 does of Phenylbutazone
  • 100 doses of Tildren
  • 12 bottles Adequan
  • 20 doses Amikacin
  • 20 doses Carbocaine
  • 12 doses Dexamethasone
  • 12 doses Dexium
  • 12 doses Deladine
  • 20 Hylvisc syringes
  • 12 doses Banamine

Many of these drugs are either banned in the UK or sold under a different formulation. The sheer amount of Tildren is very interesting, as it is a drug that has a limited shelf life and would only be given to a horse once or twice a year for bone-related issues.

Sheikh Mohammed is no stranger to equine drug-related offenses. In 2009, he was banned from endurance riding by the FEI for six months after a horse he had ridden tested positive for a steroid. Additionally, horses trained in stables owned by the Maktoum family have been at question in two dozen doping cases since 2005.

Also, earlier this year Sheikh Mohammed’s racing stable in Newmarket was at the center of another doping scandal when it was discovered that his trainer Mahmood al-Zarooni had given steroids to 22 of the Sheikh’s race horses.

As far as the drugs on the jet, Princess Haya, his wife and president of the FEI,  told The Guardian that she and Sheikh Mohammed didn’t know about the May seizure until it was reported last month and have opened an internal investigation in to how something like this could have happened.

Classy. How’s that FEI Clean Sport initiative going anyway?

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