英国皇家爱斯科赛马会 女王和王室成员盛装出席

The best horses from around the world in final preparation for the most prestigious meeting of all -- Royal Ascot. It comes after a scandal this spring that saw leading trainer Mahmood Al Zarooni banned for injecting horses with anabolic steroids. Performance enhancing drugs are illegal in British racing. But in some countries sending runners to Ascot, substances like the anti-bleeding agent Lasix are a fact of life.If we didn't use Lasix, it will be like Usain Bolt putting a starting blocks five metres behind the other guys. You know, I'm not prepared to do that. I'm fighting as hard as anybody in America to change the rules.

I should be able to go racing in any country and know that not any of the rules in terms of medication, even your objections, you know, for interference. The rule should be standing out, in my opinion, throughout the world.

Britain's leading Acorn Vets is the benefits if the drugs are clear, but can never be justified.

They increase aggression. You could argue that it might make a horse keener to race, keener to run. Um, and if they enable it to work harder during training, which they probably do, then you can get it fitter during the training period. I think you have to be pretty a callous sort of person to be prepared to expose your horse to unnecessary risk for your own ends.

The modern Royal Ascot is an international meeting with runners from countries with much more liberal rules on the use of drugs. Despite this, the authorities here believe the public can have confidence in every horse that passes the winning post.

Each horse that travels has to send in advance to the British Horse Racing Authority a schedule of what treatment that horse might have received in the previous, quite a long time, time before it comes. And then when the horse arrives, they are tested by the British Horse Racing Authority there.

So as the attention turns from scandal to runners and riders, British racing is hoping for a week of clean sport, though it may take longer to wash away the troubles of recent months.

Paul Kalsol, Sky News.