This website uses cookies

We use cookies to improve your experience and to provide us with insight into how people use our website.

To find out more, read our cookie policy.

Joe O’Shea, a leading trainer of point-to-pointers and hunter chasers has been given a three-months suspended ban and fined £1,000 by a BHA disciplinary committee.

Cheshire-based O’Shea accepted he was in breach of the BHA’s code of conduct relating to an incident at Bangor in February on a day when his Williewonga finished second in a hunters’ chase. It was said he insulted a member of staff and made separate discriminatory comments to the head of racecourse operations and the track’s senior security manager.

O’Shea, whose ban was suspended for 12 months, said his words had been taken out of context, while others were said in haste. However, he apologised for the incident.

Panel chair James O’Mahony warned O’Shea that if he offended in similar manner in the next 12 months the ban would commence.