Racing: Chapple-Hyam fined over phone records

DERBY-winning trainer Peter Chapple-Hyam has been fined £5,000 for misleading or attempting to mislead an investigating officer of the British Horseracing Authority.

Chapple-Hyam admitted to having breached BHA rules at a disciplinary panel hearing in London yesterday morning.

The Newmarket-based handler was found to have given the BHA doctored telephone records which concealed the telephone number of an individual who was an associate of an “excluded person”.

Chapple-Hyam’s records did not, however, reveal a connection with anyone excluded from racing, a claim which had which formed part of the BHA’s initial investigation. The disciplinary panel stressed it was “wholly unacceptable for forged documents” to be supplied to the BHA and said that a suspension or disqualification for such an offence could only be avoided “in an exceptional case”.

Evidence was presented to the disciplinary panel which showed Chapple-Hyam had, for some time, been suffering from acute anxiety to an extent where he has required medical treatment. The BHA concluded that Chapple-Hyam’s attempt to conceal his contact with the aforementioned individual was “in part attributable to that condition”.

Although the BHA imposed a fine at the top end of the prescribed range, there was no evidence to suggest he had been in contact with an excluded person.

In yesterday’s racing, meanwhile, Frankel’s juvenile half- sister Joyeuse claimed a first Listed-level victory as she held on by a neck in the E.B.F. Stallions & Country Gentlemen’s Association Dick Poole Fillies’ Stakes at Salisbury.

Tom Queally asked Joyeuse to quicken entering the final couple of furlongs and she reached the front without much trouble but needed the line to arrive as Dorothy B launched a late volley. Coral left Joyeuse unchanged at 12-1 for next year’s 1,000 Guineas.