Trainer Gerard Butler has blamed "one disastrous lapse" and naivety after being given a
five-year ban
for injecting racehorses with banned drugs.
The 47-year-old injected four horses with Rexogin,
which contains the anabolic steroid stanozolol and is designed for use
in humans.
He also used the Sungate product on another five horses at his stables.
"It was wrong for me to cut corners but I did so principally through naivety," said the Newmarket-based trainer.
Horses with an asterisk were injected with Rexogin.
A
British Horseracing Authority
disciplinary panel heard he administered the banned substance
Rexogin, which is popular with human bodybuilders, using a method of
injection only qualified veterinary surgeons are allowed to use.
He bought five boxes of the product online from a
company that explained on its website that stanozolol was one of the
substances which enabled disgraced athlete Ben Johnson "to achieve his
magic sprints".
Rexogin contains 10 times the concentration of the anabolic steroid that Sungate does.
Irishman Butler has been a trainer in his own right for 15 years, but must now find new homes for all the horses he trains by Friday.
"While this has been a devastating and humiliating experience for me, I am above all aware of its impact on others: not just my family, staff and owners but also the sport I have always loved," he said in a statement on Thursday.
"I have no intention of hiding from my responsibility for an error of judgement that has undone many years of honest endeavour.
"My sense that I had betrayed the standards I have always sought to maintain can be judged from the fact that I myself brought a number of breaches to the attention of the BHA."
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