Robbie Dunne found guilty of sexist bullying against Bryony Frost and banned for minimum 15 months

Robbie Dunne has been banned from racing for a minimum of 15 months for his seven-month campaign of sexist bullying against Bryony Frost.

A disciplinary panel bitterly attacked the "coercive" culture of weighing rooms as they ruled Frost was targeted with "foul and misogynistic" abuse.

In a landmark ruling for the sport, Dunne was found guilty of all four main charges and handed an 18-month suspension for each offence, to run concurrently.

The final three months of his ban will be suspended while authorities monitor his future behaviour around Frost. Given he is already 36, Dunne may struggle to ride at elite level again.

After a ruling damning "dangerous bullying" and "a promise to cause harm" from Dunne, Frost, Britain's most successful woman jump jockey, said she would "take a few days" of reflection. "I would like to thank every individual including the racing public that has supported me not only during the last couple of weeks but throughout," she said.

Frost, the panel found, had been "truthful, careful and compelling" in whistleblowing which "broke the code" of her secretive industry. The 26 year-old had broken down in tears frequently as she described her turmoil during five days of evidence at the BHA's headquarters in High Holborn.

"Hateful" attacks from Dunne, a less successful jockey, included him allegedly exposing himself outside a sauna while boasting about conquests with other women. The BHA accused him of a "dog whistle" attempt to "victim blame" Frost during one of his fiercest attacks on her following the death of his horse, Cillian’s Well.

She had alleged he "cantered up to me and said some thing on the lines of, 'You're a f------whore, you're a dangerous c---', and, 'If you ever f------ murder [cut across] me like that again, I'll murder you'."

Brian Barker, a former appeal court judge, former judge James O’Mahony and Alison Royston, a former head of administration for the Premier League, spent Thursday night considering their verdicts.

"We have real concern that what was referred to by Mr [Louis] Weston as being, we quote, 'weighing-room culture', we have a real concern that that is deep-rooted and coercive, and in itself is not conducive to the good health and the development of a modern-day racing environment," said Barker.

During sentencing remarks, Barker had told Dunne: "A professional athlete should behave in a professional way. This was a deliberate targeting of a colleague whose vulnerabilities you exploited. Whatever your view of her style, this was not the way to deal with it. Your behaviour was not appropriate in an equal opportunities sport."

Dunne accepted telling Frost, "I'll put you through a wing", as he raged over her riding in Sept 2020, but claimed bullying allegations were only raised after he received a mystery call warning him his legs would be broken.

However, BHA lawyer Weston said a weighing-room culture that allowed Dunne to become a self-appointed "enforcer" was "rancid" and stuck in the 1950s. A feud escalated between the pair after she was first upset by Dunne's conduct outside a sauna, which jockeys use to meet racing-weight guidelines.

Frost, whose story was supported by her trainer father, Jimmy, had first alluded in public to the fall-out following her biggest win, on Frodon, in last year's King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day.

Dunne, 36, was found guilty of four charges relating to conduct prejudicial to the integrity, proper conduct and good reputation of the sport. There were also a further three lesser charges of acting in a violent or improper manner, which were set aside.

Delivering their oral findings, the panel said the BHA's case was accepted. "The need... for trust and respect is paramount" in a "dangerous" sport", they said. "The need also is an environment and workplace where men and women can compete with courage on equal terms, safe in the knowledge that the standards that are universal in other walks of life will apply," the panel added.

"Our conclusion, then, on the whole of the evidence is that a course of deliberate conduct over a significant period of time has been revealed. This is progress from... targeting, through deliberate harassment on and off the course, to occasional cases of dangerous bullying."

The offences related to three specific race days last year: Stratford on July 8, Uttoxeter on Aug 17 and Southwell on Sept 3. "We find that the words used on September 3 were as a promise to cause real harm, and were over and above the usual jockey mantra of 'murdering'," the panel added. "On the examination of Miss Frost's evidence and demeanour, we find her to be truthful, careful and compelling."

The panel dismissed the appeals of Dunne, who said claims of bullying were only raised by Frost in September last year after a mystery caller threatened him but realised they had gone "too far".

In the panel's criticism of Dunne, they took issue with his self-appointed status as an "elder of the weighing room". "I'm acknowledging that after the Southwell race, Mr Dunne believed that Miss Frost was the cause of his mount's death, and that he had suffered a fall," Barker said. "We are unable to accept Mr Dunne's sweep of denials, criticisms and his reasoning. A man who in the view of one of his own witnesses is a 'piss-taker' and who regarded himself as one of the elders of the weighing room and someone who expected his view to be heeded."

During tense cross-examination, BHA barrister Weston accused Dunne of "lying" in his evidence. "You bullied her, you threatened her, you called her misogynistic slurs because she stood up to you - that's the truth of it," Weston had said.

During closing statements, Weston said some of Dunne's behaviours towards Frost were a "1950s" throwback. "Carry on Up the Riding Class, type of thing," he told the hearing. "Let's make jokes about women. Unacceptable."

Weston said that it would have been against Frost's interests to have fabricated her claims. "What's important in this case is that it's very clear that Miss Frost knew that prior to stepping up and confronting Robbie Dunne as she did, she would run the risk of going against the grain of her profession, being ostracised, and excluded, as she has been," he added. "Jockeys not talking to her, valets saying they're not going to work for you anymore. It's outrageous that they behave in that way because she had the guts to stand up to a bully."

However, Roderick Moore, counsel for Dunne, told the panel it would be “grossly unfair” to judge him on anything other than how the weighing room is at present. Dunne had claimed Frost was "renowned" for cutting across other jockeys during races.

Change has to come but we must tread carefully

By Marcus Armytage, Racing Correspondent

The sound from the basement of 75 High Holborn that will have the most telling effect on jockeys, male and female, and the way they operate in the future was not that of the book being chucked at Dunne.

Rather it was the words of Brian Barker QC, chairman of the independent disciplinary panel, when he said his real concern was that “weighing-room culture is deep rooted and coercive” and “not conducive to the development of modern race riding”.

Whither the weighing room now? The British Horseracing Authority already has a long list of to-dos in 2022 but changing something as intangible as weighing-room culture will be among the most challenging fix. Barker was not wrong in his assertion about it being deep-rooted – it will take a bit more than a code of conduct and it might take a generation.

Going out to ride in a race on a half-ton animal is inherently dangerous. The quid pro quo on that is a thrill that one does not generally get sitting at an office desk. Races evolve at speed, snap decisions are made and emotions can run high.

But no one wants people making it any more dangerous than it needs be and it will be a challenge for the BHA mainly because the weighing room strongly believes in the right to police itself; the right of senior jockeys, who learnt in similar fashion, to pull up younger, inexperienced rivals for what they regard as dangerous riding, or as Barker termed it in Bryony Frost’s case “the frustrations of her style”.

Of course, there are ways of doing that – a “chat without coffee”, as it were – which are not bullying or coercive. You can do that in a kind way. There are some aspects of the culture, such as the right of a senior jockey over a junior to take the inside, which appear wrong. Equally, however, a free-for-all is probably not going to help the long-term health or wealth of any jockey.

The court of public opinion, if the winners’ enclosure at Sandown after Frost won the Tingle Creek is any guide, has cast the jockey as Snow White in this year’s Christmas panto.

But, in stark contrast, within the weighing room there was almost universal support from male and female jockeys alike, not for Dunne’s language or misogyny, for sure, but for his right to pull up another jockey if he believed them to have ridden in a manner to make an already dangerous sport more dangerous. So, who now determines whether a senior jockey having a go at an apprentice constitutes bullying?

There is no question Dunne went way too far for far too long in pursuit of his feud with Frost. He was out of order. It was, as Barker pointed out, “unprofessional” and “inappropriate in an equal opportunities sport”. One of Dunne’s mistakes was making it personal. We all work with people we do not like, clash with or do not think are good at their jobs, but it does not mean we can swear or flash at them.

But I believe that in the days of John Francome, Peter Scudamore and Sir Anthony McCoy, when there were weighing-room leaders, this would have been nipped in the bud, to both Dunne’s and Frost’s satisfaction.

There are few other modern businesses or workplaces in which you can get away with some of the language used by Dunne. It was unacceptable and he has been punished with what will almost certainly be a suspension that could ruin, if not end his career.

If racing is to be relevant in the third decade of the 21st century it has to observe societal expectation and modern culture and the BHA will have to find a way to act on Barker’s words.

But at the same time as driving a change in attitudes, it should remember that there are some attitudes that are worth keeping, otherwise the baby will get thrown out with the bathwater.

Inside racing's 'rancid' weighing-room culture

By Tom Morgan

‘‘What happens in the weighing room stays in the weighing room” were Robbie Dunne’s famous last words when the Bryony Frost furore first became public. Eleven months on and now it is all on show, with unwanted exposures for the secretive sport extending well beyond Dunne unwrapping his towel at Frost.

The curtains have been drawn on a wider culture which regulators believe is stuck in the “1950s”. A “sour, rancid” life which should be “thrown out and discarded” is the shattering assessment of the British Horseracing Authority’s counsel.

Yet for the vast majority of jockeys, even those at the top of the sport, there remains fierce resistance to modernising a dressing-room culture which likes to settle its scores behind closed doors.

Within weeks of details emerging of the Frost sexist bullying allegations against Dunne, four-time champion Richard Johnson failed in an attempt to get the pair to sort out their differences in a meeting at Kempton in February.

The BHA’s position outlined by lawyer Louis Weston, however, was that these interventions by older, respected jockeys were exactly why the system is no longer fit for purpose. He proved his point by interrogating Johnson on Tuesday on whether or not he found it acceptable that Dunne had allegedly called Frost a “whore” during their most ferocious confrontations at Southwell.

Johnson, Tom Scudamore and a host of colleagues came forward to speak in Dunne’s defence, but could only say in response that this is how the sport has always been.

“I’m not saying it’s OK, but I’m not saying that he’s the only person who’s ever used those words,” said Johnson. “Every single jockey riding has used words that you would not like to be called or say in the cold light of day.”

During the hearing, Frost had expressed distress that other women in the sport did not back up her claims. She claims to have seen fellow jockey Lucy Barry being preyed on by Dunne, but Barry was said to deny any such incident took place. Frost had said: “I distinctly remember Mr Dunne bending Lucy over a table and pretending to do a certain act to her. She was laughing it off and people were finding it amusing. She was very close with a few of the male jockeys in the weighing room, and this was, for her, normal behaviour.”

Amid a wall of silence, Lizzie Kelly and Lucy Gardner also rejected any suggestion that Dunne had acted inappropriately. However, what turned the case in Frost’s favour was her own “compelling” testimony and that of others no longer in the sport. Former amateur rider Hannah Welch described how she quit racing having been reduced to tears by Dunne in November 2018.

“He was shouting and swearing, standing very closely in front of me. I was crying. He did not stop,” said Welch. As with Frost, however, other jockeys hit back at her claims by questioning her riding lines.

Prior to the verdict, Dunne, 36, had admitted one breach of the rules by behaving in a violent or improper manner towards Frost, 26, at Southwell on Sept 3 2020. He recognised too that he had warned her that he would “put you through a wing” as he had apparently blamed her “cutting across” and causing the death of his horse, Cillian’s Well. “I said it,” Dunne said, “but... it’s a common thing that’s said within the weighing room... I think it’s just a matter of speech that’s said in the weighing room.”

With that quote in mind, the panel ruled on Thursday that there were “deep-rooted and coercive” issues in weighing-room culture that were “not conducive to the good health and the development of modern day racing environment”.

Before Brian Barker, a former appeal court judge, former judge James O’Mahony and Alison Royston, a former head of administration for the Premier League retired to consider their verdicts, Weston had told them: “If what is being said, when you come to determine this case, [is that] there is a weighing-room culture that allows one jockey to threaten another with serious injury to them or their horse, or to call another a whore, a slut or a slag, then that culture is one that is sour, rancid and one that we say should be thrown out and discarded. Its time, if ever it had its time, has gone.”

Roderick Moore, counsel for Dunne, told the panel it was “grossly unfair” that the case was becoming a wider hearing about cultures in racing. “If something needs to change, that’s for the future, that’s a policy matter, a political matter,” he said. “You can only judge Mr Dunne against the present weighing room.”

Major spats are a rarity in the weighing room, and even more so in jump racing, where the stakes are highest – “We’re dangerous enough as it is,” said one leading jockey – but the notion that racing’s camaraderie is iron-clad is a fantasy.

The sport’s history is littered with instances of petty rivalries and personal politics turning toxic. In 1994, Kieren Fallon, the six-time champion jockey, infamously pulled Stuart Webster off a horse at Beverley, before another confrontation in the weighing room led to Webster suffering a broken nose. Fallon was eventually banned for six months.

In more recent examples, Christian Williams was given a six-day ban for hitting Tom Scudamore at Hereford, Sophie Doyle was banned for seven days after striking out at Kirsty Milczarek, and Timmy Murphy earned a nine-day suspension after dislocating his shoulder in a weighing-room scuffle with Dominic Elsworth in 2013.

Recriminations lingered for some time after Raul da Silva and former champion jockey Jim Crowley came to blows in 2018. The pair accused each other of starting a weighing-room brawl that left Crowley needing stitches to a cut lip. Crowley said that he was the victim of “an unprovoked attack from behind with what felt like a piece of lead”, while Da Silva said he would “swear on my son’s life that Jim started the fight”. Da Silva was banned for 21 days for violent conduct.

But those cases are notable because they are rare. Sports psychologist Michael Caulfield, former chief executive of the Professional Jockeys Association, has previously said he has seen only “moments” of friction. “I never saw any behaviour which discriminated against anyone, or the nastiness you might find in another walk of life,” he said.

Caulfield, who now works in football, rugby and cricket, said the weighing-room culture works because racing is the ultimate leveller. “You can have a guy who owns the vast estate stretching to thousands of acres changing next to a guy who may have been born into almost remarkable rural poverty,” he said. “Yet when it comes to racing and the respect between the two, they are almost like twins. It was the first place in my life I ever saw no barriers.”

However, as the dust settles on a case which Frost admits has left her “ostracised”, the BHA appears more likely to follow the advice of her father Jimmy, who has previously told Telegraph Sport racing must be “brought into the 21st century” to ensure a new generation of youngsters are not put off.

Jockeys react with fury to ‘rancid’ culture claim in Frost bullying case

By Tom Morgan

Racing found itself at war on Thursday after jockeys rejected the conclusion of a landmark bullying hearing that “rancid” weighing-room abuse was “coercive” and “deep-rooted” within the sport.

A disciplinary panel sparked the extraordinary row by voicing concern about wider failures when it banned Robbie Dunne for “foul and misogynistic” attacks on fellow rider Bryony Frost.

Regulators immediately promised a new code of conduct to clean up the sport, but the Professional Jockeys Association was furious at what it claimed was “wholly unfair” criticism.

“I feel the way it has been handled has been shocking,” said David Bass, the organisation’s jump jockey president, as he attacked “disgraceful” elements of the British Horseracing Authority case.

To the dismay of senior figures within the BHA, the riders’ union added: “We do not believe Robbie Dunne has been subjected to a remotely fair process.”

After the union said pointedly that Frost had “felt” bullied, BHA chief executive Julie Harrington advised it to “reflect with their members before speaking any further”. She added: “As the chief executive of the BHA, there is a clear finding that Bryony was bullied.”

In an unprecedented case in racing, Dunne was suspended on Thursday for a minimum of 15 months after being found guilty of a seven-month campaign of sexist bullying against Frost. “This was a deliberate targeting of a colleague whose vulnerabilities you exploited,” the panel ruled. “Your behaviour was not appropriate in an equal-opportunities sport.”

“Hateful” attacks from Dunne had included him allegedly exposing himself outside a sauna while boasting about conquests with other women. The BHA accused him of a “dog-whistle” attempt to “victim blame” Frost during one of his fiercest attacks on her following the death of his horse, Cillian’s Well, in September last year. Frost had revealed how he “cantered up to me and said some thing on the lines of, ‘You’re a f------ whore, you’re a dangerous c---’, and, ‘If you ever f------ murder [cut across] me like that again, I’ll murder you’.”

The final three months of a ban of 18 months for Dunne will be suspended while authorities monitor his future behaviour around Frost. Given that he is 36, he may struggle to ride at elite level again.

As they digested the verdicts, Harrington and her team promised reform which they believed would empower other potential whistleblowers to come forward. “It’s the first time the BHA has had a hearing of this nature,” she said. “But it is important for racing fans, for the public, for parents who want their children to come into this sport, that we can look them in the eye and are seen to be doing the right thing.”

Frost, Britain’s most successful woman jump jockey, said she would “take a few days” of reflection after a ruling which condemned “dangerous bullying” and “a promise to cause harm” by Dunne. The panel found Frost had been “truthful, careful and compelling” in whistleblowing. The 26-year-old had broken down in tears frequently during five days of evidence.

However, the PJA and other jockeys – both men and women – issued statements calling her evidence into question. “It is sad that whilst one woman is being praised for speaking her truth, the rest of us have been shamed for doing the same,” said a statement issued by the PJA “on behalf of female jockeys”. The PJA took particular issue with a remark about a “rancid” culture in the weighing room, which was made by Louis Weston, representing the BHA. Bass later labelled the BHA lawyer an “absolute disgrace” for allowing the case to go on so long.

The PJA added: “It is a grossly inaccurate and wholly unfair representation of the weighing room and a conclusion we believe is at odds with the evidence presented.”

Brian Barker, a former appeal court judge, former judge James O’Mahony and Alison Royston, a former head of administration for the Premier League, said problems extended beyond Dunne. “We have real concern that what was referred to by Mr Weston as being, we quote, ‘weighing-room culture’, we have a real concern that is deep-rooted and coercive, and in itself is not conducive to the good health and the development of a modern-day racing environment,” said Barker.

Dunne was found guilty of four charges relating to conduct prejudicial to the integrity, proper conduct and good reputation of the sport. A further three lesser charges of acting in a violent or improper manner were set aside.