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A former top woman jockey and a member of a prominent Auckland family are the latest high profile arrests on drugs charges.
Two-time Wellington Cup winner Leanne Isherwood is due back in court on July 12 after methamphetamine was allegedly found in her car.
And an Auckland woman in her 20s, who is heiress to a multimillion-dollar fortune, appeared in court yesterday accused of possessing methamphetamine for supply.
The Sunday Star Times reported today that former racing glamour girl Isherwood was arrested by armed police in a raid on a suspected P lab in Otaki on the Kapiti Coast 10 days ago.
Police said they found 4g of the class A drug, worth about $4000, in her car.
Detective Constable Lane Demchy, of Levin CIB, told the paper police had been doing surveillance on the raided property, which does not belong to Isherwood, for several days before executing a search on June 21.
Isherwood, 35, is best known for her dramatic upset on longshot winner Miss Bailey in the 1999 Wellington Cup.
She first won the Wellington Cup in 1993 on Dancing Lord, and rocketed to prominence in the mid-90s when she finished sixth on the jockeys' premiership.
She has since disappeared from the racing scene.
The paper said the heiress was charged after police stormed a house on Friday. She faces counts of possession of methamphetamine for supply, possession of utensils and possession of cannabis.
She spent last night in Auckland's Mt Eden Remand Centre after appearing in court before two JPs charged with possessing methamphetamine for supply.
She was granted interim name suppression and will reappear in court tomorrow.
Isherwood is the third top jockey to be caught up in drug related charges.
Lisa Cropp, who has won the New Zealand jockeys' premiership for the past two years, tested positive for methamphetamine at a Te Rapa race meeting in 2005 and is still fighting the charges.
Former champion jockey Leith Innes is banned from racing for six months after testing positive for ecstasy at the Queensland Oaks meeting at Eagle Farm on June 2. He is appealing the ban.
- NZPA
