Robbie Dunne admits to performing in ‘violent manner’ towards Bryony Frost | Horse racing
The National Hunt jockey Robbie Dunne focused his fellow rider Bryony Frost in a marketing campaign of bullying and harassment which incorporated “foul, sexually abusive and misogynistic language”, threats to “cause her severe bodily harm … by injuring her at the races” and driving with undue aggression through races in 2020, the British Horseracing Authority’s impartial disciplinary panel listened to on Tuesday.
Dunne admitted a solitary breach of the rules of racing in his carry out in the direction of Frost as a disciplinary listening to into the scenario opened on Tuesday in London, conceding that he experienced acted “in a violent or poor manner” in direction of Frost just after a race at Southwell in September 2020, in which his mount, Cillian’s Effectively, experienced a deadly harm.
He denies the charge of “bullying and harassing” Frost concerning 13 February and 3 September, as well as specific prices relating to the contest at Southwell and two additional races, at Industry Rasen in July and Uttoxeter the pursuing month.
Outlining the BHA’s scenario against Dunne, the barrister Louis Weston told the 3-member panel that even though the prices include events in 2020, the two riders had “fallen out” as early as 2017, when Dunne “displayed his bare self” to Frost in a switching home “in a way that was unacceptable and of course so”.
Subsequently, Weston claimed, when Dunne “made jokes and responses about his sexual relations with other girls jockeys”, Frost “stood up to him and claimed it was not satisfactory … [and] they fell out as a outcome of it”.
Other alleged incidents, such as “mocking responses in passing” as Frost was interviewed after a big acquire at Cheltenham in March 2019, “set the background” to Dunne’s bullying according to Weston, but “things took a convert in February 2020”.
Weston explained that using Lickpenny Larry in a race at Leicester on 13 February, Dunne had been “deliberately intimidating” to Frost, and “also in dialogue on that occasion called her a fucking slag and a hazardous fucking whore”. This language, he mentioned, “is plainly offensive, plainly misogynistic and if tolerated by a sport’s regulator, bringing it into disrepute”. Weston comprehensive a claim of more obscene abuse on 8 July at Stratford, when Dunne could be witnessed “speaking loudly” to Frost as the two riders pulled up their mounts following a race.
“What he reported to her have been phrases to this impact: ‘You’re a fucking whore … and if you ever fucking murder me like that again, I’ll murder you.’” Weston additional that “murder in this context” usually means “cut up or slice across”, and that a bystander who overheard the exchange is predicted to give evidence to the listening to on Wednesday.
On 29 July 2020, at Marketplace Rasen, Dunne is alleged to have ridden his horse Buyer Beware “in these kinds of a way that he is pushing [Frost, on Wisecracker] and “making her move her horse”, at a time in the race when there was “absolutely no need” to do so. At Uttoxeter soon later on, meanwhile, Weston claimed that even though the two riders had been circling in advance of a race, Dunne instructed Frost: “I’m likely to quit you murdering everyone, I’m going to murder you.”
What eventually prompted Frost to lodge a formal criticism against Dunne, Weston mentioned, was the rider’s conduct following the race at Southwell in September 2020 in which his mount was killed.
Dunne confronted Frost in the weighing place and “angrily” stated: “The up coming time I journey in opposition to you, I guarantee I will set you as a result of a wing [of a fence].” This, Weston explained, “is a specially dangerous thing” for a jockey for the reason that they “not only come off their horse but make contact with a bodily object that can lead to them major damage. He was threatening to do her a really serious injury.”
Dunne, he ongoing, “had it in his head” that Frost experienced “cut him up or ridden throughout his horse”, and thought that as a final result “he is entitled to grow to be some type of enforcer or make threats to do her critical harm”.
Even so, he claimed, “there is no excuse or justification for it, none at all … and not only does act in that misogynistic and hateful way, he is declaring to a fellow jockey: ‘I will trigger you really serious injuries.’” Frost is predicted to give proof to the listening to when it continues on Wednesday.