Final Demand loses Cheltenham placing as Willie Mullins is fined £1,100

Final Demand has been disqualified from second place in the Brown Advisory Novices’ Chase at Cheltenham, with trainer Willie Mullins fined £1,100 following a positive test for mepivacaine. Sporting Life reported that the sanctions followed a fast-track referral in which Mullins admitted two breaches of racing rules. The horse had finished behind stablemate Kitzbuhel in March.

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The independent British Horseracing Authority panel’s decision, published on Monday and reproduced by The Irish Field, imposed a £1,000 fine for the prohibited substance and £100 for an omission from medical declarations. Final Demand contested the Grade One race on 11 March. The ruling also requires redistribution of the prize money because the horse is no longer entitled to a placing.

Investigators established that Final Demand had received mepivacaine during treatment for a lower-jaw injury on 3 March. That administration should have appeared in the second-stage medication declaration before the festival, but was omitted. However, the expert evidence cited in the decision did not support the earlier treatment as the explanation for the positive test eight days later.

BBC Sport reported that the investigation could not establish how the substance entered the horse’s system. Expert evidence instead suggested a small dose had entered close to sampling. The panel said there was no suggestion that Mullins or his staff knew of that administration, and the BHA accepted that reasonable precautions were in place at the yard.

A separate part of the investigation concerned missing CCTV footage from a yard where Final Demand had been stabled. Racecourses are required to retain that material, but the panel was told the hard drive containing the recording had been misplaced. According to the BBC, Cheltenham received a £5,000 fine for the breach.

Judicial panel chair Sarah Crowther KC cautioned against attaching excessive significance to the missing footage. Final Demand had moved to another yard by the time the dose was believed to have entered its system. Footage from that location was obtained and examined, leaving the route of exposure unresolved despite the disciplinary outcome.