DOGGIE chocs are at the centre of a doping scandal which has soured the sport of whippet racing.

The small, round sweet morsels could scarcely be more innocuous - but they have sparked a drugs furore on a whippet-world scale of Linford Christie's positive Nandrolone test.

Prizewinning racing dogs have been stripped of titles, their owners then face the ignominy of being branded "scum" by fellow racers they have known for decades.

A quartet of previously well-respected trainers - Jan Ambrosini, Jane Poole, Colin Nevison and Rab Patterson - all faced the full wrath of the British Whippet Racing Association.

Their crime, giving their prized pooches a choccie treat for winning races. Their punishment, being ostracised by a tight-knit community of friends.

Jan Ambrosini, of Durham, saw a 36-year amateur career racing whippets destroyed overnight when her dog, Don Ambro, was stripped of his Racing Champion title.

Don Ambro was given chocolate buttons as a treat after winning a top-class race, but a random dope test revealed the banned substance theobromine was present in the chocolate.

She has never returned to whippet racing.

She said: "I have never been to a race meeting since the day they banned me. I couldn't go thinking that people believed that of me.

"There have been an awful lot of very nasty letters which have been printed in a whippet magazine, classing us as scum.

"I wouldn't go back to whippet racing, never ever. It took the pleasure out of all the years we did enjoy."

A whippet racing source revealed that giving chocolate and coffee to dogs was not unusual because they were pets, but added there was no benefit to be gained from it. Some trainers even use the muscle-enhancer creatine which is used to boost muscle performance.

The British Whippet Racing Association, which banned the four owners, believes it has no need to defend its policy on dope testing.

Secretary John Fitzpatrick, of Stockton, said: "I do not want to get into a war of words."

mparke