Racehorse TALK

Friday, 5 June 2009

Champion jockey Lisa Cropp has been disqualified for nine months and ordered to pay $NZ99,500 ($A78,848) in fines and costs after being found guilty on a drug charge.

The penalty was handed down on Friday by a tribunal of racing's Judicial Control Authority (JCA) which in March found the drug charge relating to her positive test to methamphetamine at a race meeting in Te Rapa, Hamilton, in June 2005 to be proved.

The disqualification will begin on June 25 so she can make arrangements for horses being trained on her property.

Disqualification means Cropp cannot attend a racecourse, trial tracks or a property where racehorses are trained.

The monetary penalty is made up of a $NZ7,500 ($A5,942) fine and $NZ92,000 ($A72,914) in costs. The costs figure is 50 per cent of the tribunal's estimate of costs incurred.

The decision came after a lengthy defence effort in which the champion jockey fought the case through the courts on various grounds before it was sent back to the JCA tribunal, which found her guilty on one charge.

New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing (NZTR), which brought the prosecution, had sought a disqualification close to the maximum of 12 months, a fine close to the maximum of $NZ10,000 ($A7,928) and 80 per cent of costs.

NZTR lawyer Simon Moore argued methamphetamine was both a safety risk and a performance enhancer for a jockey and that a serious deterrence and denunciation was needed.

He also said that while Cropp had the right to make her legal challenges, "in this tribunal the assertion of those rights carry with them potential for a costly caveat, and that caveat is that if you lose, then you can expect to pay".

Cropp's lawyer Antony Shaw said his client was entitled to take all the defences she took, and was a first offender.

In its ruling on penalty, the tribunal said Cropp had an extremely high reading but there was no adverse effects noticed on her riding that day and she tested clear five days later.

It adopted a starting point of 10-1/2 months and reduced it to nine due to her not breaching the drug rule previously and her otherwise good character.

The tribunal said a fine was appropriate as a deterrent, especially due to the amount of methamphetamine in her system.

In ruling on costs, the tribunal noted that total costs for the JCA were $NZ66,979 ($A53,102) and the legal fees and disbursements for NZTR were $NZ117,680 ($A93,274), making a total of $NZ184,660.03 ($A146,363).

Though NZTR had asked for an order of 80 per cent of costs, the tribunal said "there is nothing in the defendant's conduct or personal circumstances which justifies our adopting a figure in excess of 50 per cent".

It said the committee's patience was tested by Cropp's inaccurate assessment of how long it would take to make her submissions, but that most of the delay was due to her court actions which she was fully entitled to take.

"While we accept some issues raised by the defendant were `collateral issues', to adopt the expression used by the informant, they were not matters that we would regard as being frivolous," it said.

"Had we been of this view, we would have given serious consideration to an award approaching the level requested by the informant."

The costs will be divided on a proportional basis between NZTR's legal costs and disbursements and the JCA costs.