Horse trainer's excuse briefly amusing High-profile horse trainer Paul Beshara. PAUL Beshara should be one of the good stories of the spring racing carnival. He's a small horse trainer with a big horse, Happy Trails. Together, they are the latest incarnation of racing's sweetest fairytale, Joe Janiak and Takeover Target, or Vic Rail and Vo Rogue. Well, they should have been. Beshara is open of heart and honest of hope, an antidote to those sheikhs and corporates who infiltrate the industry and buy access to its biggest spoils. After winning the $1m Emirates Stakes at Flemington last November, Beshara, then 64, jiggled about the mounting yard and announced that winning was better than sex. His cavorting warmed hearts. After recent claims, however, a new question hovers. Was he wearing underpants at the time? Beshara told the story about how he'd bought the horse for $11,000 at an Adelaide yearling sale on behalf of owners Peter and Erica Dickmann. Happy Trails had run nowhere at its first trial, then finished third at its first start, then won its next. After the Emirates Stakes win, the Dickmanns shared the trophy with fellow train travellers on the ride back from Flemington. When Happy Trails won the $500,000 Turnbull Stakes a few weeks' ago, Beshara spoke of "Roy," the horse he treats like a son or brother. They had chats walking to and from the track each day. Next Saturday, Happy Trails is due to start in the Cox Plate: at longish odds, it could be a shrewd bet. Yet Beshara's backstory has shifted tone in recent days. Now, there's a little skulduggery in the mix, no surprise in itself given the trainer's grounding in and around stables, wharves and an offshore oil rig. A hint of corruption, after all, is never too far away in a game of whispers and winks. It's not the nature of Beshara's "crime" that stands him apart from the trainers and jockeys and countless others who are hauled before officials each year. On Friday, the Racing Appeals and Disciplinary Board found Beshara guilty of injecting Happy Trails on the morning of September 14, a race day. The more lasting problem, perhaps, is the detail of Beshara's alleged cover-up. Beshara, who is built like an ageing shot-putter, stands alongside the cyclist Lance Armstrong or the runner Ben Johnson for the seeming lameness of his excuse. He argued he could not have administered such an injection, as alleged, because - wait for it - he was not wearing undies at the time. Racing men take care with their appearance. Jumps jockey Les Boots took his pyjamas to the course in a gladstone bag. He fell 40 times from 39 starts - once, he fell off, remounted, and fell off again. Another jumps jockey, still with us, carried his false teeth in a pocket during rides. If he won, he slipped them in his mouth so he could smile for the crowd and cameras. At least two newspapers offered male spring carnival apparel advice last week. Neither spread suggested that underwear was an optional extra. The undies question arose in Beshara's case after one of the racing stewards that September morning asked Beshara if he had hurriedly slipped something down the back of his pants. The suspicion was that he had hidden a hypodermic needle. At the time, he told stewards that they were not going to "touch my privates." He told last week's hearing that his refusal was based on his wearing no undies. Unfortunately, a subsequent line of questioning did not follow: Why were you wearing no undies? Were you inspired by that Seinfeld episode when Kramer eschewed underwear and declared that he was "out there"? Do you often not wear undies and, if so, are you certain you wouldn't rather take your penalty instead of sharing such information and exposing yourself, so to speak, to a lifetime of ridicule? Beshara instead emphasised his commando status to promote his innocence. He argued the absence of undies meant he could not have harboured a hypodermic needle in his nether regions. It seemed an unusual defence, especially when a steward explained he had glimpsed a black band beneath Beshara's jeans, "consistent with underwear." A looming suspension (Beshara can appeal) will pass. The infamy may not. Beshara's disputed claim compares with cyclist Tyler Hamilton who, in blamed an unborn twin brother for the presence of foreign blood in a 2004 blood sample. Apparently, Hamilton said, a "vanishing twin" can leave genetic material. There was Shane Warne, who blamed his Mum for the positive diuretic test in 2003 - she wanted him to look trimmer on TV, he said. American runner LaShawn Merritt was disqualified for two years in 2010 after testing positive to dehydroepiandrosterone. He claimed an innocent mistake: the banned steroid was contained, without his knowledge, in a penis enlargement product. Beshara should study the case. Merritt conjured an embarrassing situation, then compounded it: "To know that I've tested positive as a result of product that I used for personal reasons is extremely difficult to wrap my hands around."