Ground 1(a1)
Ground 1(a1) involved the contentions that:
1. the Tribunal used the word "altrenogest" in two technical senses: the precise chemical compound; and, the therapeutic or pharmaceutical product by which that compound was administered to the horse;
2. in these circumstances, the Tribunal erred in law by:
1. failing to "carry through" its implicit findings as to meaning in its conclusions;
2. failing to give any or sufficient reasons to explain "the plain and ordinary meaning" that the Tribunal accepted if it was different from those two meanings or it was only the precise chemical compound meaning; and
3. failing to find on the true construction of r 188A(3) that it referred to both meanings of altrenogest.
This ground 1(a1) raised a number of issues that overlapped with ground 1(a) and it is unnecessary to repeat the relevant parts of the reasoning in relation to ground 1(a) set out above.
The foundational proposition upon which ground 1(a1) was based was that the Tribunal used the word "altrenogest" with two meanings. On my reading of the Tribunal's reasons, this does not appear to be the case. At D[232], the Tribunal referred to "altrenogest", as well as to "epitrenbolone" and "trendione", as being detected by the laboratories in the samples taken from the horse in question. This was beyond doubt a reference to those precise chemical compounds and not to pharmaceutical products by which altrenogest (or the other chemical compounds) were administered. This usage of "altrenogest" was continued in subsequent paragraphs of the Tribunal's reasons, D[235] to D[245], where the chemical composition and nature of altrenogest were discussed. Similarly, in considering whether "altrenogest" included epitrenbolone or trendione as "transformation products", the Tribunal referred to the "use" or "administration" of altrenogest. While it can be accepted that altrenogest can only be relevantly used or administered by way of a veterinary pharmaceutical product containing altrenogest, it does not follow that the word "altrenogest" in that context was being used to mean the pharmaceutical product rather than the chemical compound. Indeed, the pharmaceutical products by which altrenogest may be administered were elsewhere identified in the reasons as "Readyserve" and "Regumate".
Moreover, the reference to altrenogest being "the manufactured product", at D[292], is to be understood, in the context of the reasons as a whole, as a reference to the chemical compound altrenogest, which is produced by the manufacturing process being considered, not the particular veterinary pharmaceutical product by which it might be administered to horses, such as "Readyserve" or "Regumate".
Accordingly, I do not accept that the Tribunal used the word "altrenogest" with two distinct meanings. Nor do I accept that the Tribunal failed to give any or adequate reasons as to which meaning it was using when it held in effect that on the proper construction of r 188A(3) the word "altrenogest" should be given its "plain and ordinary meaning". Consistently with the rest of the Tribunal's reasons, the reference to the "plain and ordinary meaning" of the relevant words was clearly a reference to the chemical compound altrenogest or allyl-trenbolone and not to any pharmaceutical product by which that chemical compound might be administered to fillies or mares. By referring to the "plain and ordinary meaning", the Tribunal was also indicating that, in its view, it was not appropriate to construe the exception for "altrenogest when administered to fillies and mares" in r 188A(3) as including epitrenbolone and trendione when those chemical compounds were not specifically mentioned or necessarily included, in any relevant sense, in the chemical compound altrenogest. There was no error of law on the part of the Tribunal in so doing. Nor was there any jurisdictional error.
For these reasons, I reject ground 1(a1).