OFF BEAT: Morphine trips up Queen's racehorse on drugs test

Reputation risk is high on the agenda of most corporations, and the British royal family is not immune to threats to its brand.

Buckingham Palace announced Tuesday that a racehorse owned by Queen Elizabeth II, a renowned fan of equestrian sports, had failed a drugs test.

The 5-year-old mare, Estimate, tested positive for morphine — a substance banned by the British Horseracing Authority on race days though permitted for medicinal use.

As a result, Estimate likely will be stripped of her second place in this year’s prestigious Ascot Gold Cup race, which was held in June.

And the Queen likely will have to return the £80,625 ($137,748) prize money the horse was awarded for that race, according to the Daily Telegraph.

As well as an assessment of the reputational damage caused by the embarrassing drugs-test fail, the Queen may wish to ask her racehorse trainers to conduct a thorough audit of their supply chains.

The most likely explanation for the presence of morphine in Estimate’s sample is a contaminated food batch, according to the Telegraph.

In a statement Wednesday, the supplier of food to the Queen’s horses, Kettering, England-based Dodson & Horrell Ltd., said it had withdrawn several batches of a feed called Alfalfa Oil Plus after being informed by one of its suppliers about potential contamination.

Also likely to be rising up the Queen’s risk register is social media exposure. An erroneous screen grab from the BBC news site which read “Queen has tested positive for drug morphine…” has been making the rounds.