Samuel not out of the woods

JARRED Samuel, (pictured) who took a horrific fall at Greyville last month, is still not out of the woods. Samuel spent time in hospital recovering from severe concussion but was seemingly well on the way to recovery.

“I was fine but I still had pain but no one was able to find out why. Eventually my doctor went down my back and found the problem.”

X-rays showed a compression fracture and he will be in a special brace until it heals.

Samuel doesn’t know when he will be back riding.

Meanwhile, Darren Egan, banned until November 22, 2027, was found guilty of corruption charges last November but the British Horseracing Authority has now published details of the length of his ban.

The former leading apprentice was found to have engaged in a conspiracy with unlicensed individual Philip Langford, who at the time was given an immediate exclusion order which will remain in place for at least the next 15 years. A BHA disciplinary panel said Langford laid Egan's rides between June 17 and July 16, 2013, with the jockey charged with having deliberately ridden to lose in two of those races at Chepstow.

Conspiracy

British racing's governing body said in a statement that "the starting point for both their cases was that this was a conspiracy which struck at the heart of the sport".

Egan, who has not ridden in Britain since October 2013 and is living in the US, declined the BHA's invite to provide details of any mitigating circumstances which could have reduced the length of his suspension.

The BHA disciplinary panel said Egan sent an email dated November 23 last year, in which he accepted he had committed wrongdoing but that he "desperately" needed money. He told The Sun that he had "never stopped a horse" in his life and blamed the arrangements of his apprentice jockey's contract, which saw some of his earnings retained by his then-employer in order to cover costs.

A BHA statement read: "It can of course be said on Egan's behalf that he was relatively young, that he was still an apprentice, and that the corruption was initiated and pushed forward by Mr Langford.

"But Egan was a willing participant. In his email, he explains that he knew what he was doing was wrong but that 'I needed the money desperately'.

"The panel was unable to see any reason for mitigation in that, or in anything else of which the panel was aware."

Last Thursday, Langford sent a written submission to the BHA, but the authority said it "contained no identification of mitigating factors" and that he was the "instigator of the conspiracy".