Toby McCain-Mitchell after winning the Champion Equestrian Conditional Jockeys’ Handicap Chase with Safe Destination during the Dragonbet Welsh Racing Festival at Chepstow Racecourse. Picture date: Sunday October 12, 2025. Credit: AlamyA GRAND National Festival-winning jockey who was awarded a £25,000 race in the stewards’ room has been hit with a huge 32-day ban.
Toby McCain-Mitchell has officially gone down as the winning jockey of the tainted Debenhams Handicap Hurdle for conditional jockeys at last month’s Aintree meeting.
Toby McCain-Mitchell, in the middle in the green and yellow cap, was awarded the Grand National Festival race but has since been banned for breaking whip rules Credit: PA
Jockey Patrick O’Brien was first past the post but he was subsequently stripped of victory and banned, also for breaching whip guidelines Credit: PA
McCain-Mitchell was second past the post on the Oliver Greenall & Josh Guerriero-trained 10-1 chance Melon.
But he was given the race after it emerged .
However, it has since emerged that McCain-Mitchel was also guilty of breaking whip rules in his ride on Melon.
He used his whip a total of nine times – two above the permitted level of seven in a jumps race.
That was the fourth time McCain-Mitchell had broken whip rules in six months, triggering the BHA punishment.
The jockey has accepted the BHA proposal of a 32-day ban, with nine days suspended for six months or 150 rides, whichever comes sooner.
Judicial panel member Tim Grey noted McCain-Mitchell’s most recent offence came just a month or so after he was made to attend a training course on whip use.
He will have to receive further specialised coaching as a condition of this latest breach.
O’Brien was found to have used his whip four times above the legal limit of seven in his ride on Laafi.
He was subsequently given a 28-day ban and the horse was disqualified and stripped of all prize money.
Laafi was the fifth winning horse to be disqualified since the new whip rules were brought in in 2023, from a total of more than 30,000 winning rides.
Eze Chidiebere Paul
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