Tony Culhane yesterday became the latest high-profile jockey to fall foul of racing’s rigorous stance against corruption. However, both the speed of judgment and relative leniency of sentence indicated that this case, brought by the Horseracing Regulatory Authority (HRA), had taken a significantly different course from others and involved both confessions and evidence from the defendant.
Culhane, one of the leading riders in the North, received a 12-month ban and his weighing-room colleague, Dean Mernagh, one of nine months. Two unlicensed relatives of Culhane were also warned off at a disciplinary hearing that lasted a matter of hours rather than days.
It was quickly made plain that Culhane and Mernagh had broken a pattern of denials by jockeys facing comparable charges and accepted, at a directions hearing, that they had been in breach of specific HRA rules. Despite this, Phil Williams, Culhane’s solicitor, said that his client was “extremely disappointed” by his penalty.
Williams said that Culhane accepted “he had been reckless in conversations with family members”. However, he insisted he had not influenced any race outcomes nor received financial reward, which explains the HRA’s decision to charge him only under the catch-all “aiding and abetting” rule rather than for communicating information for reward.
Under present guidelines — ironically reviewed at an HRA board meeting yesterday — there is a higher entry point for aiding and abetting penalties than for the alternative charge. Culhane thereby ended up being treated more severely than Mernagh, who had confessed to receiving £200 a race for negative information about ten different mounts.
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The inquiry centred on 37 races in 2003 and 2004 and Culhane’s cooperation included giving evidence against his own father-in-law, Dave Watkins, on whose betting accounts the wagers were made, and Culhane’s brother-in-law, Gary Lyons, a former jump jockey and race reader, admitted being the conduit for much of the information. Watkins was warned off for five years and Lyons for two.
Culhane has not ridden since sustaining injuries in a fall at Wolverhampton in April and it is unclear when he would have been fit to resume. Like Mernagh, he still has the right of appeal.
Until recently, the Jockey Club was historically responsible for such integrity matters but its business is now entrenched in racecourses. Yesterday, in another part of London, mixed messages were delivered on the health of this key business.
Not being a plc, accountable to its shareholders, the Jockey Club is not obliged to issue detailed results but chose to reveal a sharp drop of 10.8 per cent in average attendances at its 14 courses, contrasting with a rise in racing profits of £1.5million.
Much of the shortfall in crowds can be attributed to Kempton’s tortured start up as an all-weather track, along with the well documented struggles of nearby Sandown. Andrew Coppel, chief executive of the group, admits the problems but believes both venues are turning the corner.
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“Kempton was a problem because we didn’t understand the business model at first,” he said. “It is now attracting a different market and its 2007 attendances are so far up 22 per cent. At Sandown we made some marketing mistakes but they won’t be repeated. I’d like to think that Eclipse day last Saturday was the start of something better.”
Coppel also disclosed that his courses mirror the increasing trend across all sports towards big events. Weekend attendances actually rose by 1.46 per cent, while weekday fixtures — excluding such iconic events as Cheltenham and Aintree — showed a fall of 8.7 per cent.
Various Jockey Club courses must urgently seek replacement sponsors because of the withdrawal of bookmaker backing over the betting shop pictures dispute.
A firm line on this matter was indicated by Andrew Gould, the finance director, who attributed the creation of TurfTV to the refusal by major bookmakers to pay for races shown on terrestrial television. “I would describe it as piracy,” he said. “It was the final straw in a very one-sided relationship.”