Trainer Sam Kavanagh says he was ambushed when his father and a senior Australian Turf Club official met him at a Sydney hotel to get him to change his evidence to Racing NSW stewards.
Sam Kavanagh is at the centre of an inquiry sparked by elevated levels of cobalt and the presence of caffeine found in Midsummer Sun after he won the Gosford Cup in January.
Matt Rudolph, ATC executive manager – racing, has been asked to show cause why he should not be penalised for his part in the meeting on March 2.
Sam Kavanagh told the hearing in front of a Racing NSW board sub-committee on Tuesday, his father, Melbourne trainer Mark Kavanagh and Rudolph, told him to change his evidence he had been supplied with cobalt by Flemington Equine Clinic vet Tom Brennan.
He said Rudolph told him to “don’t throw people under the bus” at the meeting which became heated.
“Matt Rudolph told me to `take Tom out of this’,” Kavanagh told the hearing.
“I felt ambushed.”
Mark Kavanagh is one of five Victorian trainers charged with cobalt offences and until late last year, Brennan was also his vet.
Brennan has been charged by both NSW and Victorian stewards for supplying Sam Kavanagh with “Vitamin Complex” a substance later found to contain a large amount of cobalt.
