by Karsten Bønsdorf, USTA Newsroom Senior Correspondent

The biggest doping scandal ever in Europe has shaken the European harness racing community.

Some of the best trotters in Europe — all trained by the French trainer Fabrice Souloy — have tested positive for Cobalt. It is top trotters like Your Highness, Un Mec d’Heripre and Lionel who are involved.

They have all tested positive for Cobalt from tests taken after the Oslo Grand Prix, where Your Highness won, Un Mec d’Heripre was third and Lionel sixth.

Your Highness won the prestigious Oslo Grand Prix after a fight with Nuncio, driven by Ôrjan Kihlström.

Nuncio is now going to be handed the race and thus will remain unbeaten in 2016.

The test from the Elitlopp, where Un Mec d’Heripre won an elimination and finished third in the final, has also been tested for Cobalt and came up positive.

A fourth trotter from Souloy, Timone EK, who won the Rikstoto-match on the day of the Oslo Grand Prix, has also tested positive for Cobalt.

All four trotters are now banned from racing while the investigations are carried out and Fabrice Souloy is not allowed to race trotters in Scandinavia at all.

Souloy believes that the trotters got the high concentration from a vitamin product, which his Italian vet had recommended. However, Norwegian doping experts feel that a concentration for up to five times the amount allowed is not possible to get from a vitamin product.

Souloy has had tremendous success with especially Scandinavian owned and bred trotters. Besides the Oslo Grand Prix, Your Highness has won the Olympia Trot in Gothenburg and the Copenhagen Cup in Denmark in 2016. Un Mec d’Heripre won the Aby Stora Pris one month ago, and during the Winter meeting at Vincennes Lionel was the only trotter to beat the French superstar Bold Eagle.

The owners of Lionel have already moved their trotter from Souloy and other Scandinavian owners are to follow them.