Banned jockey used on promotional poster

Lingfield Park has been left red-faced after they used an online poster, promoting their Flat Jockeys Handicap Hurdle race (12 November), with banned jockey Eddie Ahern as the centrepiece.

Having seen the poster on the racecourse website and Twitter page, H&H alerted Lingfield Park to the mistake.

The racecourse said that the poster had been made using a photograph that had been used to promote the 2012 race — which was designed before Eddie Ahern was banned for a series of breaches of the anti-corruption rules.

“We have no issue with using the poster, it does not mean we are supporting a banned jockey — it is promoting the race not the jockeys included,” a spokesman from the racecourse told H&H.

Arena Racing Company (ARC), who operate Lingfield Park, has since advised the racecourse to remove the poster from its website.

Eddie Ahern was handed a 10-year ban from racing in May — one of the longest punishments ever handed out by the British Horseracing Authority. Ahern later lost his appeal.

The mishap comes after the organisers of the World Equestrian Games (WEG) used an image of a banned endurance rider in their promotional poster — it was duly removed.

This news story was first published in Horse & Hound magazine (14 November, 2013)

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