John Joseph 'Shark' Hanlon has had his training licence reinstated by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board.
Hanlon was initially given a 10-month ban and fined €2,000 over an incident in which he transported a dead horse in public view.
It was reduced to six months following an appeal, with the possibility of serving just three if he adhered to requirements set out by the IHRB.
The ban began on 1 December last year, with Tara Lee Cogan assuming training duties at his yard, despite a request from Hanlon to defer it until April which was refused.
An IHRB hearing was held on 5 February to review if the ban could be suspended to the shorter period as raised in the appeal ruling.
Representatives of Hanlon agreed not to run a horse before 1 March as part of the application and that he would accept any condition imposed upon his licence.
The Referrals Committee permitted lifting the last three and a half months of the suspension on conditions the trainer would not run a horse before this Saturday and that Hanlon does not commit any further breach of the original offence known as Rule 272 between now and 1 June.
They said the suspended ban could come into effect along with any other penalties that might arise if he did so.
Hanlon has said he will not be running horses at Cheltenham, but stable star Hewick is set to be aimed for the Grand National at Aintree in April.
With that date looming Hanlon is delighted to be back in action.
He said: "They gave the licence back to me two weeks ago in fairness, but there's a new rule in Ireland that you have to have horses in training for 14 days before you can run them, so we’ll be ready to go again from March 1."
Last season’s King George VI Chase hero Hewick has run twice for Cogan this winter, finishing fifth in a Grade One hurdle race at Leopardstown over the Christmas period before coming home seventh behind Galopin Des Champs in the Irish Gold Cup.
The 10-year-old is entered in the Boodles Cheltenham Gold Cup next month, but Hanlon is leaning towards sidestepping the blue riband in order to keep his powder dry for the world’s most famous steeplechase at Aintree three week later.
"I think we’ll miss the Gold Cup, the National is the plan and has been for a while," he added.
"The handicapper has dropped him a little bit after his last couple of runs and he gets in the National with 11st 7lb, which I think is a nice weight because it looks like 10st 10lb could be bottom-weight, so he wouldn’t be giving loads of weight to anything.
"As long as we get good ground, that’s the main thing, and I’d rather go there fresh than be taking on Galopin Des Champs in the Gold Cup.
"I might give him a run over hurdles between now and then, but we’ll see. There’s a race a conditions hurdle in two weeks’ time in Ireland and I might go there."
