If you work your whole life with horses then maybe, just once, if you are lucky, you can have what Kirsty Mcmahon had with Cats Fun.

Cats Fun won big races and won them in Mcmahon’s home town of Warrnambool, which is as much fun as racing gets. More than that, he was her riding horse, jumping horse, hunting horse, companion horse and most of all, her friend.

Kirsty Mcmahon in Warrnambool with her horse Waltzes. “I had a connection with Cat which is very rare.”Credit:Mark White

“I had a connection with Cat which is very rare,’’ she tells The Age. “He was just a really special horse.”

Which explains why Ms Mcmahon is so angry.

A week ago, Ms Mcmahon found out that the trainer she used to work for, Darren Weir’s right hand man Jarrod McLean, has been accused of injecting Cats Fun with a prohibited blood booster, EPO.

The allegation, revealed in documents provided as evidence to the Victorian Supreme Court, follows the discovery by police in January this year of a used syringe at Mr McLean’s Yangery property near Warrnambool.

Winners are grinners: Cats Fun’s biggest victory was the 2013 Brierly in Warrnambool. He was ridden that day by Jarrod McLean’s brother Brad.Credit:Damian White

Analytical testing showed that the syringe contained erythropoietin or EPO, the substance used by Lance Armstrong to cheat the Tour de France, and the blood of a horse that matches the genetic profile of Cats Fun, a horse which last raced in 2014.

The cold-case doping allegations are the subject of Racing Victoria proceedings against Mr McLean which are running parallel to the criminal case against Mr Weir and Mr McLean for using jiggers and other cruel methods to make horses run faster.

Ms Mcmahon, who says she had no inkling that any of this was going on insider Mr Weir and Mr McLean’s stables, is furious that Cats Fun may have been tampered with.

“He meant more to me than anything,’’ she says. “For him to get dragged through this mess is just a shock. I had so much fun with him and to hear they were messing around with him, I’m just very angry about it.

Kirsty Mcmahon giving Cats Fun an early morning run on Warrnambool beach back in 2014.Credit:Damian White

“People told me over the years they have got to be doing something. I was just naive, I didn’t believe it. I feel like an absolute idiot now, now waking up to it.”

Cats Fun was officially trained by Mr McLean and Mr Weir but it was Ms Mcmahon, as an assistant trainer to Mr McLean, who stabled, exercised and looked after the horse for most of his racing career. After his last start in 2014, he stayed on with Ms Mcmahon and became her horse.

His biggest career win was in the 2013 Brierly, a steeplechase run over nearly 3½ kilometres as part of Warrnambool's annual May racing carnival. That win, like all Cats Fun's wins, will now come under suspicion, which is heartbreaking for Ms Mcmahon.

“I worked that horse for months before that race. He was big and strong and we put in miles and miles of long, slow work leading into that. They horse had never felt better, he had never looked better.

“I honestly believed he was a happy horse and happy horses win races. I don’t want to take any credit away from the horse. That’s what annoys me. That horse worked really hard to get that.”

It is nearly a year ago that Cats Fun died suddenly in a paddock mishap.

It was Cup eve and the Cat was prancing around, playing with Mcmahon’s little Shetland pony. Mcmahon was about 30 metres away when she saw him slip on the damp grass and heard the unmistakable crack of breaking bone. By the time she reached him, he was nearly dead. The vets suspect that a broken bone in his pelvis severed an artery.

Mcmahon cares for three ex-racehorses at her Warrnambool property but none of them will ever replace Cats Fun. She still works with horses, helping owners and trainers truck them around the state but has no association with Weir or McLean, who are banned from the sport.

“I don’t want anything to do with them,’’ she says. “I don’t care what happens to them. I’m just glad horses aren’t getting hurt anymore.”

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