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Seven of Ma’s male athletes walked out in October following a similar dispute.There were also complaints from athletes about Ma’s excesive discipline. They then dominated the women’s middle-distance events at the world championships, a domination which has provoked widespread allegations of drug abuse.Liberation Daily reported last month that Ma was driving three of the Mercedes cars won by his gold medallists in Stuttgart, and had spent £550,000 on a training centre from their total winnings of £800,000. One of the main issues was the destination of prize money, which Ma’s athletes had accrued since they arrived at the forefront of the sport in 1993. A story in the Beijing Youth Daily said that only three athletes remained in Junren’s training group, known as the Ma Family Army, in Liaoning Province, following a mass walk-out in mid-December.
It followed an acrimonious meeting with Ma the previous day at which several athletes were reduced to tears. Sixteen of China’s leading women runners, led by the world 3,000 and 10,000 metres record-holder, Wang Junxia, are reported to have walked out on their coach, Ma Junren, after a dispute over prize money and excessive discipline.

There will be an inspection of the latter course at 9am today to determine the prospects for tomorrow’s card.
If weather forecasts prove accurate, Saturday’s card at Sandown could also fall victim to snow.. Tomorrow’s turf meeting at Uttoxeter is threatened by snow storms and parts of the track at Towcester have not thawed out. It means the spotlight will again fall on Lanfranco Detto ri, who added a treble at Wolverhampton yesterday to the doubles he had recorded on each of the previous two days. “The results in this case are disturbing but not surprising,” he said. “It is a sad fact of analytical life, especially with the time period involved.”.

For the third successive day, the only racing to be staged in Britain today will be on an all-weather course as the scheduled cards at Nottingham and Sedgefield have succumbed to the frost. Deterioration of the sample from the time it was collected in August to the second test in December may have caused the discrepancy.The HFL director, Neville Dunnett, said he hoped that all counter-analysis, which became mandatory from this week, will in future be completed within two to three weeks. I hope something is learnt from this.”
Scientists at the HFL are investigating how two different results can occur. Lewis said: “I have no axe to grind with the Jockey Club as they were given the result by the laboratory and had to take the steps they did. As the Horseracing Forensic Laboratory in Newmarket yesterday began an investigation into how its findings in the Bo Knows Nigel case were contradicted by a second, independent test, the trainer at the centre of the controversy, Geoff Lewis, said he feltno animosity towards the Jockey Club. Because of the second, contradictory test, racing’s ruling body has dropped its investigation into the case of the gambled-on horse who initially failed a dope test. “We could go for the Irish National,” Bramall says, “and we might even go over to France in the summer.” And if a French-bred could bring some francs back to Britain, even the squires might raise a smile..

He usually needs a run, which is why I’d have preferred to go for something smaller, but these highly-rated horses can never get a run anywhere.”Antonin’s season is effectively just beginning, and may now stretch well beyond the Festival. “He’s recovered now, and he never actually stopped work at home, so it wasn’t too bad getting him back again.”I’m not too happy about diving straight into a race like that, and I entered him in a hurdle at Haydock too, but I notice they’ve put a ballot on him which means he’ll be the last one into the race. This weekend should see his first outing since a poor run at Cheltenham in November, possibly in the Mildmay/Cazalet Memorial Chase at Sandown, and while his ante-post price for the Gold Cup has drifted in his absence, a strong performance would re-establish him as a serious Cheltenham contender.”He ran badly last time because of a secondary lung infection which wouldn’t allow him to use his lung capacity,” Bramall said. I saw about 30 horses and bought half a dozen, and one of them was Antonin.”Antonin turned out to be one of the finest advertisements for French-bred horses to date. It was not just the prize-money he accumulated in winning the Ladbroke Gold Cup, Racing Post Chase and the Ritz Club Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, but the strength and determination he showed throughout his run of success.In two outings this season, Antonin has failed to trouble the judge, but he is a horse who finds form as the days get longer. “I bought two,” she said, “and I liked them so much that on my next trip I went visiting trainers all over northern France.