Bill steroids have been around for years, and years ago Boldonone did test as you say. Now a new version tests for as little as 17 days and then only that long using a very specific testing method. I'm sure someone will correct me here if I'm wrong but if Boldonone had been used in a therapeutic recovery protocol wouldn't it have been administered or at least supplied by a "legitimate" vet as VVV said we don't tend to have bodgy ones. Wouldn't then the exact amount and time of administration be known? Wouldn't the trainers know what had been administered to horses in their care instead of publicly stating they didn't know what Boldonone was?

Yes Harvey there is a massive difference between therapeautic substances and things that shouldn't be found in a horse EVER. The NZ authorities raised the bar on testing by sending swabs to Hong Kong, and they didn't hide the fact that they were going to send them to Hong Kong. That should have served as sufficient warning to both vets and trainers that they should review their current treatment regimes as I'm sure, particularly after Tim Butt returned a positive here from the Hong Kong lab, that the capabilities of the Hong Kong Lab to detect prohibitive substances is well known in NZ. If they didn't do so then they did that at there own risk, arsenic is listed as an ingredient on Caco Copper Iron I believe.

And as to the scale of penalties recently released by HRNSW I am in total agreement with VVV here and no it doesn't pain me at all to say it.