'It's very hard to swallow' - 25-day whip ban for Dougie Costello after fourth offence in six months

Dougie Costello has been given a 25-day totting-up ban after being found to have breached the whip rules for the fourth time in half a year.

His most recent offence, at Beverley last month when he was beaten a neck on Regency Boy, came almost exactly six months after the first of the four breaches. If the Beverley fixture had happened five days later, he would not have triggered the totting-up procedure.

"It's very hard to swallow," the 41-year-old jockey said, pointing out the ban would keep him out of action during a busy period. "We work 12 months of the year but we really only earn three months of the year. At this time, I'm trying to make enough that I can put away for winter time."

Costello used his whip seven times on Regency Boy, one more than rules allow, but argued that his first use, at the top of the straight, had been purely for safety reasons. As Escarpment hung in from the outside, Costello sensed a danger that his mount would be squeezed out of a gap between horses and forced back on to their heels.

"That is the card you do not want to take," Costello told the disciplinary panel on Tuesday, when he pointed to the fall suffered by Tiber Flow and Tom Marquand at York in May.

"At this point of the race [in that situation], you're 99 per cent likely to clip a heel and come down, risking your life and the animal's life and the people behind you."

Beverley: Dougie Costello argued whip use at the top of the straight was necessary for safety reasons Credit: Getty Images

Costello explained that his instinctive solution was to pull his whip through to his right hand and use it once as a way of instructing his mount, who had been "a little bit unsure" in blinkers, to stand up to the pressure from his left and not allow himself to duck in behind the horse on his right. 

He told the panel that if he had simply intended to encourage his mount to go forward, he would not have needed to switch the whip out of his left hand.

Fiona Horlick KC, chairing the panel, appeared to have difficulty with that point and asked why using the whip in Costello's left hand would not have achieved the same end. She also wondered why the jockey did not restrict himself to five subsequent whip uses. 

He responded that he was trying to win the race, in which he was eventually beaten by only a neck, and was clear in his own mind that the first usage should be discounted.

Charlotte Davison, for the BHA, repeatedly accused Costello of exaggerating the peril he had faced at Beverley. 

"You know it's the only way you can avoid a lengthy ban," she told him. She added that the bar for a safety exemption was set "extremely high", the rules calling for "exceptional circumstances" before it could be invoked.

The panel decided Costello's whip use did not qualify for the exemption, and therefore he had broken the rules and was liable for a totting-up ban. Eight days of the 25-day suspension will be deferred, to be triggered if he should breach the rules within the next six months.

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