Mark Kavanagh says Dr Tom Brennan is a liar
The vet at the centre of cobalt cases in two states is a liar, Victorian trainer Mark Kavanagh has told a tribunal.
Dr Tom Brennan has said he told Kavanagh he could not guarantee the contents of a bottle containing a substance called vitamin complex.
Brennan never said that, Kavanagh told his appeal against his three-year disqualification over the horse Magicool’s cobalt positive in October 2014.
“It’s just a lie,” Kavanagh told the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal on Monday.
“When you employ a vet, they’re told from the start that they do not have any unguaranteed products.
“That is nothing short of a ridiculous allegation. I can’t believe he even said it.”
Brennan maintains Kavanagh and fellow Flemington trainer Danny O’Brien knew he was adding the vitamin complex substance to drips given to horses in their stables and they each paid $3000 for three bottles of it.
Brennan said he told Kavanagh it cost $1000 a bottle and he could not 100 per cent guarantee the contents, and testing would cost from $10,000 to $100,000.
“He said stuff that, just use it,” Brennan previously told VCAT.
Kavanagh said: “That’s a lie.”
The trainer has also denied paying Brennan $3000 in cash.
He has told VCAT he trialled an IV drip regime for delivering vitamins on Brennan’s suggestion but stopped it after a month as as the horses were not going any better.
A bottle of vitamin complex Brennan sent to Kavanagh’s son, Sydney trainer Sam Kavanagh, was found to contain high concentrations of cobalt.
