Injured Jockey Makes Impassioned Plea For Stricter Careless Riding Penalties

Danny Brereton, 55-year-old former jockey, made an impassioned plea for racing authorities across the world to be tougher on careless riding penalties when speaking to racing.com this week. Brereton suffered a career-ending injury during a race 10 years ago in Australia, and still cannot walk unassisted. “A proper penalty would stop careless riding in its tracks because nobody would risk losing two or three months of their year through suspension,” Brereton told racing.com. “We're not in the days of Ben Hur anymore.” Current penalties for careless riding in Australia range from a month to six weeks, and the penalties are generally much shorter in the U.S. Brereton believes that stewards are being hamstrung by jockeys' associations. “Stewards can and they would be able to stop careless riding,” Brereton continued. “They can and would be able to stop jockeys being put in wheelchairs but their hands are tied and their hands are tied by the jockeys' association, because they represent riders who have done the wrong thing and discourage stewards from issuing sterner penalties. “They have got the stewards to police it and then they're going in and over the heads of the stewards saying 'don't punish our members' but they've got another rider lying on the track. It's absolutely ridiculous, why are they doing that?” Read more at racing.com.

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