Ryan Mania cleared to ride at Aintree after two-week whip ban is halved following appeal

Ryan Mania will be able to ride at Aintree's Grand National meeting after his appeal against a 14-day whip ban aboard Rob Roy Macgregor at Newcastle this month was partly successful. The suspension was reduced to seven days.

Mania was suspended for two weeks by the whip review committee for having used his whip without time to respond on three occasions and once above the permitted level of seven.

The Grand National-winning rider was cleared of the second offence as the three-person independent disciplinary panel deemed one of the four strikes after the second hurdle, where Rob Roy Macgregor drifted markedly right, was for safety purposes.

Mania was originally banned from Tuesday to April 15 but his revised suspension now runs from Saturday to Friday. His regular mount Empire Steel has entries in the Randox Grand National and Topham the following week.

Mania told the three-person independent disciplinary panel that the Sandy Thomson-trained Rob Roy Macgregor had hung “quite severely” from the start of the 2m4½f handicap hurdle, describing it as “constant torture” to his left arm to keep the horse straight.

Mania told raceday stewards he had received a shout from a fellow rider at the second hurdle. He said on the day: “I knew my horse was going right and getting borderline dangerous, so it [whip use] was completely for safety purposes. I was trying to keep him straight and out of the way of others.”

Rob Roy Macgregor (right): proved a challenging ride for Ryan Mania at Newcastle Credit: John Grossick

Mania, who gave additional evidence in the hearing, was represented by Rory Mac Neice, who highlighted head-on footage showing Rob Roy Macgregor drifting markedly from the inside panel to the outside panel of the final hurdle, where Mania, in contrast, took no action as he felt he was not in danger or putting others in harm.

Mac Neice said: “The footage of the last hurdle is proof that if there was no danger, Mr Mania did not need to take any action, whereas he reacted immediately and urgently to the danger at the second hurdle when receiving a warning from a fellow rider mid-air. It was a move that was justified.” 

Charlotte Davison, representing the BHA, argued Mania had exaggerated the warning from his fellow rider at the second hurdle, having described it as a scream in the hearing, and said the whip usage in the incident did not warrant a safety exemption.

Davison said: “There was no need for Mr Mania to use the whip in the manner he did. There was nothing exceptional about what the horse had done at the hurdle to lead to this use of the whip.

“Mr Mania’s evidence is not consistent with the video footage shown and he has overinflated a shout from a fellow rider to a scream, making it sound worse than it actually was.”

Read more:

'I’m being accused without concrete evidence' - Patrick Mullins' Cheltenham Festival whip ban halved after successful appeal 

Injury forces Dane O'Neill into retirement after glittering 32-year riding career 

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