The culture of the weighing room needs to move with the times

In the first such case for 20 years, former rider Freddy Tylicki, paralysed and wheelchair-bound since his mount Nellie Dean clipped heels in a Kempton Flat race with Madame Butterfly, ridden by Graham Gibbons, has been suing Gibbons for £6 million in the High Court. Arguments have centred on whether Gibbons made a fractional misjudgment in an ambitious manoeuvre or whether he showed a punishable disregard for his colleagues’ safety.

It hasn’t helped racing’s image that Gibbons is a jockey with a history of drink problems and that former champion jockey Jim Crowley testified that he smelled alcohol on Gibbons’s breath that day. Judgment will come before Christmas and while the racing world has immense sympathy for Tylicki, if his case succeeds there could be wide ramifications for the future of a sport in which riders often have to make split-second decisions. Will we still praise a rider and his horse for having the ‘courage’ to go for a narrow gap? Will they still dare try?

Some male riders want the only females involved in racing to be those prepared to rub along with lads’ culture

Even bigger headlines have been caused by the British Horseracing Authority’s disciplinary panel hearing into jumps rider Bryony Frost’s complaint of bullying and harassment by her fellow rider Robbie Dunne. She has testified that he opened his towel and waved his genitals at her in the dressing room, and that he has used misogynistic abuse. He admits only one instance after a race in which he alleges her manoeuvre led to his horse falling and having to be destroyed. One course attendant testified to his amazement on hearing Dunne call Frost ‘a fucking slut’ in front of other jockeys, one of whom, Adam Wedge, then told the BHA there was ‘nothing out of the ordinary’ about the exchange.