Austrian rider that didn't know about vets' injections gets one year suspension

Austrian rider that didn't know about vets' injections gets one year suspension


The Austrian rider Felix Koller has seen his suspension reduced from two years to one year after his horse Captain Future 3 tested positive for the banned substance diisopropylamine at the CSIO5 * in St. Gallen last year. The FEI found sufficient evidence that the team's vet made the banned substance injections without Koller's knowledge.


The dose of diisopropylamine found in the positive doping test was so high that it could not have come from a supplement or from so-called contamination. Diisopropylamine is a vasodilator that makes the blood vessels widen in order to transport blood and oxygen more easily through the horse's body.

Koller provided the FEI with the necessary details about Captain Future's feeding schedule as well as a statement from one of his regular veterinarians. That vet concluded that the levels of the banned substance in the horse's blood were so high that she was probably given by injection. The rider also referred to documents from his vet showing that Captain Future had never been treated with the substance.

Koller's groom also released a statement saying she had seen the Austrian team's vet inject the horse several times a day. The FEI stated, partly based on the statement by Koller's groom, that Koller himself was not to blame for the positive doping test and was not aware of the injections. His original two-year suspension was therefore cut in half. That one-year suspension expired at the beginning of August so Koller can enter the ring again.

The vet in question has since been fired.

Source: FEI