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.
In two of the races, Brock was beaten aboard Mochalov after a series of four-figure bets were placed against the horse on Betfair while in the other, a two-horse race at Southwell on 7 March 2019, Brock was beaten on Samovar after heavy support for his opponent, Tricky Dicky.
Brock was slow to remove a hood from Samovar as the stalls opened and the horse then veered sharply left for several strides by which point, the panel decided, “he was a dozen lengths or more adrift and the race was lost”. The panel added: “Mr Brock made no serious effort thereafter until giving Samovar a slight push a furlong from home.”
The panel found Eugene Maloney, an acquaintance of McBride, had deposited £6,000 with Betfair on the morning of Samovar’s race, his largest deposit, and staked it all on Tricky Dicky. Andrew Perring, an acquaintance of Brock and Maloney, staked £2,248 on the same horse, while Luke Howells, who was also found to be in breach of the anti-corruption rules, placed a bet of £2,200 and McBride deposited £7,200 – at “a time when his average back bet was £209” – and staked almost all it against Samovar.
Unusually, the panel hearing the case also considered a number of other races in which Brock was riding, as corroborative evidence regarding betting patterns of the individuals alleged to be profiting from his activities.
These included a race at Chelmsford City on 19 September 2019 when Brock was aboard the filly Resurrected, after she had been backed from long odds to start at 10-1. Brock was subsequently found to have used a “modified” whip with an elastic band wrapped around its tip and banned for seven days by the BHA after Resurrected was found to have been wealed as a result.
The panel said Brock was “fortunate that none of the detail about the race that has been canvassed in this inquiry was before the panel in that earlier race”.
Quick Guide
Greg Wood’s Wednesday tips
Show
Newbury
1.15 Spring Note 1.45 Ittack Blue 2.15 Gamaret 2.50 Kotmask 3.25 Fairlawn Flyer (nb) 4.00 Film D’Action
Plumpton
1.25 Gaelic Park 1.55 En Coeur 2.25 Poncho 3.00 Trixter 3.35 Gerico Ville 4.10 Tommy Dillion
Wolverhampton
1.40 City Escape 2.10 Chronograph 2.40 Broughtons Flare 3.15 Fast Style 3.50 Momaer 4.25 Jupiter Express
Southwell
4.37 Master Grey 5.12 Ramensky 5.45 Victory House 6.15 Written Broadcast 6.45 Cailin Saoirse (nap) 7.15 Debydinks 7.45 Geralt Of Rivia
The panel found that the BHA’s case against a sixth individual, Luke Olley, was not proved, but he remains excluded from racing “without limit of time” having refused to cooperate with the inquiry. The penalty for Brock, McBride and the remaining individuals found in breach will be decided at a hearing on Thursday evening.
Meanwhile, Flightline, who completed an unbeaten career with a record-breaking eight-and-a-quarter length success in the Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland in November, was officially installed as the equal of Frankel as the joint-best performer of recent decades at the annual World’s Best Racehorse ceremony in London on Tuesday.
The international handicappers gave Flightline a final rating of 140, 4lb higher than Sea The Stars, who went unbeaten through six Group One events including the Derby and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe in 2009, and 6lb above two more recent US dirt performers, American Pharoah and Arrogate.
Aidan O’Brien’s Little Big Bear was the champion juvenile colt of 2022, despite suffering an early conclusion to his two-year-old campaign because of injury. He is O’Brien’s 12th juvenile champion colt and the first to be sired by No Nay Never, the 2013 Prix Morny winner.
Little Big Bear won his last four starts, including the Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot and the Group One Phoenix Stakes at the Curragh, and led the juvenile ratings on a mark of 124. He was 5lb clear of Blackbeard, who suffered a career-ending injury in October, and Andrew Balding’s Chaldean, the Dewhurst Stakes winner.