Sheikh Mohammed, the Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the Ruler of Dubai, accepted the suspension based on his horse Tahhan's positive tests for a hypertension drug and the steroid stanozolol, equestrian's governing body said tonight.

 

A FEI tribunal panel said: "Consistent with the FEI's strict liability approach to anti-doping rule violations, the panel has found Sheikh Mohammed responsible for the doping of his horse."

 

His ban runs until October 3, and he was also ordered to pay $4,200 in fines and legal costs.

 

The Sheikh's horse trainer, Abdullah bin Huzaim, admitted giving the horse drugs without the sheik's knowledge before the 74.5-mile desert races at Bahrain and Dubai.

 

Bin Huzaim was banned for a year and fined.

 

Sheikh Mohammed's wife, Princess Haya of Jordan, is president of the FEI and has campaigned to clean up equestrian's doping and medication problems.

 

The Princess, who is also a member of the International Olympic Committee, took no part in the disciplinary process.

 

The three-man panel said bin Huzaim, manager of the Sheikh's Emaar Stables in Dubai, "clearly wanted His Highness to do well with the horse.

 

"This behaviour is not acceptable and needs to be sanctioned severely."

 

Sheikh Mohammed's horse tested positive for guanabenz, a drug used to treat hypertension, after he rode it in Bahrain in January and Dubai in February.

 

The horse also had traces of stanozolol - the anabolic steroid discovered in the urine sample of Canadian Ben Johnson that led to his disqualification after he won the 100 metres at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul  - after the Bahrain race.

 

Sheikh Mohammed's lawyers informed the FEI in April of the failed doping tests.

 

He asked to be disqualified from both races and said he would investigate how his stables were managed.

 

The 60-year-old told the panel in a written statement that he had an ownership stake in 700 endurance horses and could not be expected to be aware of each one's medication protocol.

 

He is also one of the world's most successful owners and breeders of thoroughbred racehorses.

 

The panel of FEI officials from Belgium, Ireland and Norway said it received a signed statement from Bin Huzaim saying he believed the horse needed the medications, and that both would be "outside FEI detection times."

 

Sheik Mohammed suggested that his status presented "exceptional circumstances" allowing for his ban to be reduced, the ruling said.

 

Suspending the sheik from FEI competitions for six months, the panel noted that "as a person of high Government status he executes his Governmental role from a position of authority and effective delegation, the same principle should apply to stable management."

 

While the Sheikh had not proposed changes to his stables' management, he rode as an amateur and got credit for proactively informing the FEI of the test results, the panel said.

 

The FEI tribunal is considering a separate doping case involving Sheikh Mohammed's son, Sheikh Hamdan.

 

Sheikh Hamdan rode his endurance horse Eo Fawati in January in Bahrain where it tested positive for metabolites of stanozolol.