In a statement issued last night, Gain Equine Nutrition announced they are making significant progress into their investigation into the presence of a contaminant Zilpaterol identified in their equine feed range.

Gain also said they have recommenced equine feed production and will be in contact with customers soon. A potential issue was first alerted to Gain last week when a number of horses trained in France, and all fed on Gain products, tested positive for the performance enhancing Zilpaterol.

The statement read: “Following a weekend of intensive testing and data analysis, GAIN Equine Nutrition wishes to provide an update on the investigation into the presence of a contaminant identified in our equine feed range.

“We have made significant progress in our investigation and are working closely with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM), who are the regulatory body responsible for the feed sector in Ireland.

“Following consultation with DAFM, we have re-commenced equine feed production and will be in contact with our customers regarding resumption of feed supply.

“We continue to ask our equine customers to refrain from feeding their current stock of GAIN Equine products to their animals.

“We again apologise sincerely to our valued customers for the inconvenience caused by this incident and we are committed to promptly keeping you fully informed."

Testing

The Quality Control team at Gain began testing feed products, both in the market and retained samples and immediately after receiving a positive test result last Friday morning, notified all the relevant authorities and issued a statement to their equine customers.

Gain supply feed to a significant number of trainers in both Ireland and Britain. The BHA have issued advice to trainers who use Gain products, suggesting they thoroughly clean out all feed equipment with detergent and water. They have also set up an elective testing system for trainers, prioritising those with entries this week.

The Elective Testing will be undertaken by the BHA’s analytical laboratory, LGC, and samples will be processed and prioritised in order of race entry.

A spokesperson for the BHA said: “We anticipate that the sample analysis may take up to three working days to complete, though every effort will be made, within reason and depending on the volume of tests, to return results in time for any races in which horses are entered.”