The British Horseracing Authority handing over a fine of 9,500 quid to Ferdy Murphy, which led to him blowing his top following a disciplinary hearing. In fact, Murphy considered the panel to be ‘headless chickens’ because of their penalizing him for running into Mansonn Leda, who ended up fifth in the Streetlam Mares ‘National Hunt’ on December 3.

Murphy was not the only person fined for the incident. Conditional jockey Ewan Whillans was also banned from riding for 42 days from January 30th to March 12th while the horse was suspended from running for 40 days from January 30th to March 10th.

Besides this movement against the BHA by Murphy, I found it interesting to learn that Paul Eddery was appointed as his brother Pat’s assistant trainer. This additional responsibility will take place whilst he pursues his career in the saddle.

Eddery has run over 1,500 winners in 30 years and says that he looks forward to assisting Pat. He said that he had worked for him when he had started out in his horse racing career and that he was more than happy at being appointed as Pat’s assistant. He mentioned that this was because though he had no immediate plans for retiring, he had to stop one day and this long term opportunity had knocked at his door at the right time.

It’ll be interesting to see if he can juggle both balls at the same time.