Category: British Horse Racing

• Apprentice Jamie Powell banned from riding for 28 days
• Manxman promoted to first place after BHA ruling

“There is simply no excuse for using the whip four times or more above the permitted level [of six],” Brant ­Dunshea, the British ­Horseracing Authority’s chief regulatory officer, said on Tuesday, after the ­regulator’s whip review committee had ­disqualified Alphonse Le Grande and Jamie Powell from first place in the ­Cesarewitch Handicap at ­Newmarket on Saturday. “[Disqualification] sends a clear message that we do not tolerate misuse of the whip.”

But if it is not excusable then the fact that Powell has now been stripped of the most valuable and high-profile success of his career is, to some extent at least, explicable.

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• Filly failed drug test after racing in Brighton last July
• Dunlop fined £1,000 and horse disqualified from race

The Classic-winning trainer Ed ­Dunlop has been disqualified from racing for one year, with the penalty suspended for 12 months. His filly Lucidity tested positive for a metabolite of cocaine after finishing second in a race at Brighton on 4 July 2023.

The source of the positive for the Class A drug remains unknown, but while the British Horseracing ­Authority attaches no blame to Dunlop for its presence in the filly’s system, strict rules on liability required the independent disciplinary panel to impose a disqualification – or “warning off” – on the trainer, rather than simply a suspension of his licence. The disqualification will be activated if another significant breach of the anti-doping rules occurs in the next 12 months.

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The British Horseracing Authority is currently trying to find both a new chair and new chief executive

The low-key but potentially significant squabble between Flutter Entertainment – the parent company of gambling brands including Paddy Power, Sky Bet and Betfair – and Arena Racing Company (Arc), which operates 16 British tracks, flared up again last week, when Sky Bet and Paddy Power took “a commercial decision” not to offer its customers early prices for the meeting at Lingfield on Wednesday afternoon.

The two firms’ decision to effectively boycott the card until a few minutes before the off-time of each racing was something of a delayed-drop payoff to a guest column by Ian Brown, Flutter’s CEO UK and Ireland, in the previous day’s Racing Post.

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British Horseracing Authority says it has been preparing for a change of government for many months

Few could have guessed when the field came under starter’s orders for the general election in May that betting and the Gambling Commission would turn out to be such fixtures on the daily news grid. Or, for that matter, that Keir Starmer would suggest, in response to a question on his political punting habits, that he “only bets on the horses”.

Assuming the price of around 1-33 is correct and that a Labour administration with a significant majority takes the reins this week, that may well prove to be the first and last significant mention of the turf – or gambling, for that matter – by a member of the new government for some while.

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• BHA panel states trainer is ‘not a fit and proper person’
• Evidence of WhatsApp messages to former employees

The turbulent career of Milton ­Harris appeared to reach an abject conclusion on Wednesday when the Grade One-winning trainer’s licence was removed indefinitely by the ­British Horseracing Authority’s Licensing Committee, due to multiple breaches of its conditions ­including significant financial mismanagement, initiating a campaign of bullying and intimidation against fellow trainer Simon Earle, who shared some of his facilities, and serious concerns around safeguarding issues at his yard.

The panel’s decision that Harris is “not a fit and proper person” to hold a licence marks the end of his second spell as a trainer. The first, between 2000 and 2011, ended when he was made bankrupt over an unpaid tax bill, and he spent seven years out of the sport until the BHA, which had turned down two applications in the intervening period, finally agreed to reissue his licence in 2018, subject to a number of conditions.

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A winning rider saying ‘I wish I wasn’t here’ told its own story about the sport’s latest money-spinning exercise

A winning jockey’s post-race comments after picking up a decent prize rarely stray beyond gratitude to the horse’s owner and trainer, and how much they are looking forward to being aboard next time up. “I wish I wasn’t here” is unusual, to say the least.

But that was the gist of Callum Shepherd’s comments after his win aboard Charlie’s Choice in the 5pm race at Wolverhampton on Sunday, the opener on the first of six “trial” cards over the next few weeks, which will explore the potential of Sunday evening racing to expand the sport’s audience and boost betting turnover.

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A solution must be found in the simmering dispute between racing’s rulers and jockeys over the removal of track saunas

Battle lines have been drawn and trenches dug in the latest dispute between the British Horseracing Authority and Britain’s Flat jockeys, and the two sides seem set for a protracted struggle.

At issue is the racecourse sauna, which was, for generations of riders, a daily point of call until Covid-19 prompted to their closure, as a measure to prevent spread of the virus when racing went behind closed doors. The Professional Jockeys’ Association insists that a majority of its members now want the saunas back, while the BHA is equally adamant that it is not going to happen.

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Before joining the rush to suggest that a 22-year-old conditional rider with 94 rides to their name should be banned for life, it is probably best to wait for the investigation to conclude

It is, as they say, a very ill wind that blows nobody any good, and the organisers of the Wacky Weekender Festival at Worcester racecourse this month must be quietly ecstatic that the handicap hurdle for conditional jockeys, which they sponsored at the track last Wednesday, has turned out to be one of the most talked-about races of recent months.

For the rest of us, though, it remains a horrible watch, as Dylan Kitts, the rider of Hillsin, sat stock-still all the way up the straight on a horse that looked to be travelling like a surefire winner, and finished third, a length-and-a-quarter behind the winner. It was, in Timeform’s typically understated view, “an unedifying ride that failed to get the best out of him, to say the least”, and the local stewards promptly banned Hillsin from running for 40 days while referring Kitts’s ride to the British Horseracing Authority for further consideration.

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• Horse suspended for performance at Worcester on Wednesday
• Trainer claims jockey Dylan Kitts went ‘to an extreme’ in race

Chris Honour said he would “never tell someone not to win” and revealed his family have been caught up in the fallout from Hillsin’s controversial performance at Worcester on Wednesday evening.

Hillsin was making his first start for trainer Honour in the two-and-a-half mile conditional riders’ handicap hurdle and looked to have a fine chance of notching his first career victory, in the hands of conditional jockey Dylan Kitts, when moving into contention up the home straight.

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• Forty-one of the top 60 in the weights trained in Ireland
• BHA handicapper calls for ‘English challenge’

The steady evolution of the Grand National into a contest dominated by runners from Ireland seems certain to continue in April. As few as a quarter of the runners in the world’s most famous race may arrive at Aintree from British stables.

Ireland supplied a majority of the field for the first time last season, with 21 of the 40 starters and after Tuesday’s publication of the weights to be carried in this year’s race on 15 April, 41 of the top 60, and all but one of the top 10, are Irish-trained.

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• BHA panel found Brock deliberately stopped horses
• Case concerned three races in late 2018 and early 2019

Danny Brock, a jockey on the Flat from 2009 to 2021, will face a significant ban after the British Horseracing Authority’s independent disciplinary panel decided on Tuesday he had deliberately stopped three horses as part of a conspiracy to profit from betting on their races.

The BHA’s case against Brock and five other individuals, including Sean McBride, the son and assistant of the Newmarket trainer Philip “Charlie” McBride, concerned three races at all-weather tracks between December 2018 and March 2019.

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Authority may be ready to make adjustments to proposed regulations after recent lobbying from jockeys

The British Horseracing Authority indicated on Friday evening that it will look at amending its new rules on the use of the whip, which are due to come into force in February next year, following “public and private representations” from riders in recent days which focused in particular on a proposed ban on use of the whip in the forehand position.

The BHA published the amended rules in mid-July, following an extensive review and consultation process which included two senior jockeys, Tom Scudamore and PJ McDonald.

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New structure to run the sport could end the factionalism and squabbling that has dogged the Turf for decades

British racing took a significant step towards what it hopes will be a brighter and more harmonious future on Monday, as the British Horseracing Authority unveiled a new governance structure for the sport which Julie Harrington, the BHA’s chief executive, insists will “enshrine the BHA board as the ultimate authority for the sport as a whole.” If the new structure works as planned – which, of course, remains to be seen – it could finally end, or at the very least significantly reduce, the factionalism and squabbling that has dogged the sport for decades.

The new regime, which was finalised when the Racecourse Association signed up at an EGM on Monday morning, means an end to the previous “tripartite” structure in which the BHA tried to balance the interests of the racecourses, on one side, and the Thoroughbred Group (ie. owners, trainers, jockeys and stable staff) on the other.

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Simply throwing money at the top tier of Flat racing is likely to have unpredictable and irreparable consequences

Several months after the first rumours of its existence emerged in the Racing Post, some fairly sketchy details of Peter Savill’s latest scheme to transform racing’s fortunes emerged this week, suggesting that Savill and a number of other “industry heavyweights” want to “restructure” the Flat and boost prize money and field sizes at the highest levels of the sport.

Savill, for the benefit of younger readers, was a very hands-on chair of the British Horseracing Board, the forerunner of the British Horseracing Authority, from June 1998 to July 2004, a six-year reign that was never dull and, at times, highly controversial.

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Although disqualification for excessive whip use is now on the table, its enforcement is likely to be vanishingly rare

David Jones, the chair of the British Horseracing Authority’s whip consultation steering group, was keen to stress on Tuesday that its 20 recommendations on one of the most vexed issues in the sport should be seen as “a package” of measures, and one that all of its members – including those opposed to use of the whip for encouragement – could support.

None the less, two proposed changes in particular inevitably leapt off the page when the group’s report was published on Tuesday: disqualification of horses when riders commit an “egregious” breach of the rules, and a ban on using the whip in the “forehand” position.

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