French-based trainer Andrea Marcialis, already serving a six-month ban for allegedly operating a shadow training operation, is now likely to be on the sidelines until April 2025 after an investigation by France Galop stewards led to charges against the 35-year-old for various instances of medication violations and shadow operations, Racing Post reports. The cumulative ban for the four additional charges is three years and nine months. Marcialis picked up his initial ban in December of last year after stewards deemed he and his sister, Elisabetta Marcialis, had conspired to train and run horses in the name of trainer Jean-Claude Napoli.
France Galop stewards found that six horses in Marcialis's care received injections between 48 and 72 hours before racing without a prescription or prior consultation from a veterinarian. Another case involved the seizure of receipts from Marcialis's stable last October that indicated that four of Marcialis's horses had received corticosteroids three days out from racing. One of those horses, Black Morning (GB) (Due Diligence), emerged lame from a race at Saint-Cloud two days after being prescribed the steroid Betnesol with instruction to not run for two weeks thereafter.
On Aug. 31, Marcialis was reported to Saint-Cloud officials after being seen by another trainer in the car park with a 20ml syringe filled with a clear liquid in his hand. Both Marcialis's runners on the card were tested pre- and post-race; one was positive pre-race but negative post-race, however, stewards deemed there was enough evidence to “constitute an act of deliberate doping on a racecourse.”
Marcialis, additionally, picked up a nine-month ban for allegedly running a second shadow operation in Chantilly with license holder Igor Endaltsev, and he was fined €4,000 for refusing to comply with officials in testing a horse at Lyon-Parilly last September. It is unclear at this stage if Marcialis plans to appeal any of the bans.
Marcialis's biggest win came last June courtesy of Way To Paris (GB) (Champs Elysees {GB}) in the G1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud.
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