Janiak rattled by Ascot drugs row

· Australian trainer pressed to explain use of steroid
· Takeover Target 'drug-free since positive test in 2006'

Ascot's hard-working PR team have been rewarded with a strong international challenge for next week's Royal meeting but this time the visitors have brought controversy, as well as the usual added glamour. At a press conference here yesterday, Australian trainers Joe Janiak and Peter Moody answered almost as many questions about the use of steroids in their home country as about the chances of their horses in next week's Group One sprints.

It is 18 months since Janiak's Takeover Target was prevented from taking part in a race in a Hong Kong after a test, taken on the gelding's arrival there, was positive for the steroid 17-alpha-hydroxyprogesterone hexanoate, known as HPC. Yesterday, Janiak found himself suffering a belated hangover from the incident as he was pressed to clarify his use of the drug.

For that, he can thank Middleham trainer Mark Johnston, who has raised the issue twice in recent editions of his newsletter, querying whether a horse with such a record should be allowed to compete in Britain. "The effect of anabolic steroids, whereby the appetite is enhanced, the lean muscle mass is increased and the animal is able to train harder, will remain long after the drug has gone," wrote Johnston.

"It was recommended by a vet. There was never any race advantage," said Janiak yesterday, claiming he had used the steroid to help his horse recover from the effects of being transported between countries. "When you travel for 12 months of the year, imagine how much muscle the horse is going to lose. So what's he [Johnston] want, horses to come here 60% fit, so he's got a bit of a chance of beating them, is that what he's trying to get at?"

Following the Hong Kong test, Janiak was reported as saying: "It's a recovery drug, that's all, and I'll keep using it." Pressed yesterday to state when he had last administered any steroid to Takeover Target, Janiak did not immediately give a direct answer but later indicated the horse had been steroid-free since Hong Kong.

A former taxi-driver who bought Takeover Target for A$1,250, Janiak was asked if he had used any other treatment to help his charge recover from his recent journey to Britain. "The only thing we're allowed to give them now is vitamins," he said. Plainly rattled, he later referred to "whingeing poms" and then refused to answer when asked if he had used steroids ahead of Takeover Target's first visit to Britain, when he won the 2006 King's Stand Stakes.

Moody, whose Magnus will run in next week's King's Stand, shed light on how the rules in Australia differ to those in Britain, where steroids may not be given to racehorses under any circumstances. "Out of training, you can use them," he said, "but then, obviously, come race-time, you've got to be clean. So you're given threshold levels to work with and time-frames to work within."

He asserted that steroids were used purely for their therapeutic function and would give no lasting physical benefit. "I don't think there's any advantage in building horses up on steroids and then all of a sudden running without them. I think it would probably have a worse effect and for that reason we don't use them. We see heroin addicts or whatever, they're at their worst when they're coming off things."

Moody denied ever having given steroids to Magnus, who will retire to stud in September. "He's an entire, he's got steroids between his hind legs and that's gonna earn him a lot of dollars in about three months' time."

Ascot entrants from overseas were tested by the British Horseracing Authority on Monday, a procedure that was also followed last year. Results are awaited.

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