Prerov, North Moravia, March 1 (CTK) – A court dispute over the disqualification of Nikas, the 2015 Grand Pardubice Steeplechase winner, for doping, ended with the horse’s owner accepting financial compensation of 2.3 million crowns from a horse feed producer whose supply might have contained banned substances.
The Troubecka hospodarska company offered the compensation to the complainants who were the horse’s owner Petr Kupka, coach Stanislav Popelka and jockey Marek Stromsky, in the court.
The complainants accepted the offer and the court approved the agreement.
In 2015, Kupka’s stable gained two million crowns for Nikas’ victory in the prestigious race, but it eventually lost the sum after Nikas was positively tested for doping.
“We reached reconciliation and the court has approved it. We wanted to settle mutual relations. We believe that mutual accord and reconciliation does not describe the extent of guilt on the part of either of the parties to the dispute. The goal was to end the court dispute,” the complainants’ defence lawyer, Dalila Pelechova, told CTK.
Based on the agreement, Kupka is to receive 1.5 million in compensation of material damage incurred and 250,000 in compensation for non-material damage.
Stromsky is to receive a total of 240,000 crowns and Popelka 350,000, Pelechova said.
The core of the dispute was the horse feed supplied by Troubecka hospodarska. The complainants said it contained banned substances, caffeine and theobromine, which caused the winning Nikas to be additionally disqualified from the Grand Pardubice Steeplechase.
This was for the first time in the race’s 142-year-long history that the winner was stripped of the triumph due to doping.
Troubecka hospodarska dismissed any presence of banned substances in its feed supply for Nikas.
($1=25.497 crowns)
