Karl Burke- Cheat
North Yorkshire trainer Karl Burke has been disqualified for 12 months following a British Horseracing Authority inquiry into alleged race-fixing. The Middleham-based handler has been enjoying a fine season and recently saddled Lord Shanakill to Group One success in France. Former owner Miles Rodgers has been warned off for life, the BHA confirmed.
The BHA disciplinary panel decided to postpone the start of Burke’s penalty until the day after the time allowed for lodging an appeal – ie until 28 July 2009 – because “it would be wrong to cause what may be irreparable damage to Burke’s business in that time if he does intend to appeal.
“It will be for the Appeal Board to decide whether to extend that stay of the penalty if he does in fact appeal.It will also enable Burke to make the application his counsel foreshadowed at the hearing for some form of dispensation from the full effects of a disqualification if he still wishes to do so. As the Panel does not know of the grounds for such an application, this should not be seen as any encouragement to make it or to think that it might be granted, but it is right to identify that Burke has the opportunity.”
The BHA announced an investigation after concluding its review of evidence from the Old Bailey trial in 2007, where jockeys Darren Williams, Fergal Lynch, Kieren Fallon plus Rodgers were all acquitted of any wrongdoing.
Fallon did not have to face any further charges from the racing authorities but Williams, Lynch and Burke – who was arrested but released without charge as part of the original police investigation – were called before the disciplinary panel along with Rodgers. Both jockeys and Burke faced charges concerning their relationships with Rodgers and whether they supplied him with inside information over 12 races in 2004.
Lynch and Williams admitted those charges on the first day of the hearing as well as failing to supply information requested by the BHA team. Lynch also owned up to a charge of betting via Rodgers and stopping a horse from running on its merits. Williams was banned for three months while Lynch, who is now based in America, paid a £50,000 fine and agreed not to apply for a British licence for 12 months. The disciplinary panel said it was
“very conscious of what it was told of Burke’s personal situation and training operation” and that it was recognised “a penalty of disqualification has a potentially very serious effect on his owners and employees especially.”
But despite that, the panel
“felt driven to conclude that it was necessary to impose a disqualification on Burke, and that the proper period was 12 months, bringing into account the various features of this case.”
Racing Diary Says…Punters deserve better!
The only way to sort out the corruption in UK racing is to issue life bans. If you cheat you get banned for life. Why is this not being done? Fergal Lynch effectively paid off the BHA to continue riding and a 12 month ban is hardly going to have would be cheats quaking in their shoes.
If the BHA wants to clean up racing it should do something about it and not handout weak sentences to cheats.
