Note that Lisa Cropp was ultimately handed a one-year suspension and ordered to pay costs of $360,000 to the Racing Board. Given that she'd probably paid as much or more to her own shysters, this seems fairly fitting.
December 2005 Herald
As a many decade supporter of thoroughbred racing, I am forced to write and
disagree with your correspondent Ross Adams who berates Trevor Mallard for
bringing the subject of Lisa Cropp into the House.
Yes, the horse is the athlete, but dividends aren't paid unless the jockey
returns, still partnered with the horse and with the jockey weighing in at the
correct weight.
This is where the problem with Cropp lies.
Last year, she took on a horrendous, nationwide search for rides in an effort to
secure both the jockeys' premiership and the record number of wins, travelling
from Dargaville to Invercargill to ride winners.
There are two points to a positive methamphetamine test as far as jockeys are
concerned.
First and foremost - judgement. No other jockey would wish to ride in a field of
horses travelling at 70 kph with a combined horse weight of up to 8 tonnes while
one of their number may have their judgement altered by the use of mind-altering
drugs. Secondly, many jockeys have had to retire from the game due to weight
gain while others are forced to endure chronic fatigue from constantly trying to
remain slim enough to capture enough wins to make a living as it is not only
their choice of lifestyle, it is their passion. Methamphetamine has long been
known as a hunger suppressant and use of it would give a jockey an advantage in
being able to take lower weighted rides.
Cropp's own her attitude has been made plain to all with the racecourse
inspector preferring the charges having to resort to asking, in court, for Cropp
to be told to stop mouthing obscenities at him.
Which is why Trevor Mallard should be thanked for bringing the item into the
mainstream. Why is a jockey who returned a positive (and allegedly deliberately
contaminated by Cropp) sample still allowed to ride while US sprinters are
banned on the hearsay?