Hannah Welch has told how she was “amazed” no jockeys intervened when she was allegedly threatened by Robbie Dunne at a race meeting in Chepstow as she became the second woman to speak out publicly against him.

Welch indicated the incident in November 2018 contributed to her decision to quit racing as she felt that as an amateur she was not treated with enough respect by professional jockeys.

Her testimony in an ongoing BHA disciplinary hearing into Dunne’s alleged misogyny comes after fellow female jockey Bryony Frost accused him of abusive behaviour.

Welch said while she experienced being sworn at throughout her time in racing, the alleged incident involving Dunne left her in tears as it “went beyond the temperature being hotter.”

After a race in which she rode Foxy Lady, Dunne “stood very close and raised his voice in a manner to intimidate me – that made it different,” she told day three of the hearing.

She said while foul language was not unusual to her because it was commonly used in yards and in the weighing room, “it doesn’t mean I’m happy for it to happen to me.”

At the start of the race Dunne allegedly told Welch not to line up on his inside because he had essentially bagged the spot and that she had no right to go there.

After the race she claimed the jockey ‘shouted and swore’ multiple times at her in front of the whole weighing room for a minute. “I was crying. I didn’t say anything back and looking back I’m amazed no other jockey said he’d gone too far.”

It was put to her by Dunne’s solicitor Roderick Moore that had the jockey crossed a line he would have been called out. “That’s the problem,” she said. “He wasn’t.”

The solicitor also suggested having progressed from racing’s grassroots to the elite of the sport she would, naturally, have found the temperature hotter.

“That’s probably true,” she agreed. “But this went beyond the temperature being hotter. I accept swearing and shouting happens but Mr Dunne was the only person to confront me in this manner.”

Moore spent a large part of the afternoon cross-examining Chris Watts, the BHA’s former head of integrity, who had carried out the investigation into Frost’s allegations and compiled its report.

He resigned from the BHA in September but he strongly denied his departure had anything to do with his conduct in the investigation or the leaking of the report to a newspaper.

When asked why, at the start of the investigation, he had sent Frost an email with a list of witnesses asking which he she wanted him to approach and which might not be so helpful, he replied that he had taken a “victim focused approach” and had not wanted to do ‘anything without her consent and support.’

There was also a suggestion that Frost’s signed statement was written by a committee including her media manager, Howard Kruger and her father Jimmy.

Watts, who was in attendance voluntarily having left the BHA, said Frost was hard to contact and that her media managers had ‘involved themselves’ but that he repeatedly insisted her statement had to be hers and her honestly held belief.

An email exchange, said Watts, had also shown that Jimmy Frost had removed any mention of an apology Dunne had made to Frost at Bangor one day.

In a witness statement to a subsequent investigator, John Burgess, Tom Scudamore challenged whether Watts had reported his initial statement correctly saying it did not fully represent his opinion or the conversation he had with him.

Watts, he said, had referenced that he did not have a problem with Frost’s riding. He contended he did have an issue with it and that she had a lack of ‘spatial awareness.’

Gavin Sheehan, another jockey, said Frost was a brilliant jockey but ‘lines up wide and comes in on a bend’ and at Southwell forced herself into space he felt was not there.

Watts strongly denied that he had stayed often at the Frost’s farm saying that he had only been there once to interview the trainer. “If I stayed there,” he said, “I’d like to know when.”

He conceded, however, not interviewing raceday assistant Kate Hanson, who Frost spoke to after the Southwell incident on September 3 2020 and was her first point of contact with the BHA about a problem with Dunne, had been an oversight.

The hearing will resume on Tuesday.

Day two: Bryony Frost says other female jockeys chose not to report abusive behaviour

Bryony Frost wiped away tears as she described her “isolation” in the sport after accusing Robbie Dunne of bullying while other women jockeys felt under “pressure” to stay quiet. 

Giving evidence at a disciplinary hearing into Dunne’s alleged misogyny towards her, Frost claimed abusive behaviour stretched back at least four years. “I remember Robbie through my amateur career being inappropriate,” the most successful British woman jump jockey said. “I remember him opening his towel up and shaking himself in front of us at one point, thinking it was funny.” 

During cross-examination by Dunne’s lawyer Roderick Moore, Frost expressed distress that other women in the sport did not back up her claims. She claims to have seen fellow jockey Lucy Barry being “bent over a table” by Dunne — but Barry denies any such incident took place, Moore said. 

After Moore asked her whether she accepted Barry “was giving an honest account”, Frost replied: “I distinctly remember Mr Dunne bending Lucy over a table and pretending to do a certain act to her. She was laughing it off and people were finding it amusing. She was very close with a few of the male jockeys in the weighing room, and this was, for her, normal behaviour.” 

Frost was giving evidence after the British Horseracing Authority opened the hearing by accusing Dunne of presiding over a campaign of “misogynistic and hateful” attacks. Dunne accepts verbally attacking Frost for riding dangerously but he denies other charges. A feud escalated after Frost was upset by Dunne’s conduct outside a sauna, which jockeys regularly use to meet racing weight guidelines. 

During one later row at Southwell racecourse, Dunne is alleged to have told her he would “murder” her in return for her “murdering” him – a reference to dangerous riding. She alleges he “cantered up to me and said something on the lines of, ‘You’re a f—ing whore, you’re a dangerous c—’, and ‘If you ever f—ing murder [cut across] me like that again, I’ll murder you.’” 

However, when pressed on a “pattern” of other women jockeys failing to corroborate her claims of Dunne’s “inappropriate” behaviour, Frost, who at times dabbed tears away with a tissue, said she understood why they would want to protect themselves.

“To me, personally speaking, the isolation that I have found from speaking out, I wouldn’t wish it upon anyone,” she told the hearing. “I could be wrong, but you’re asking me for my opinion and my opinion is that they all have licences. They have to walk into that weighing room every day and I feel that they are protecting themselves and rightly so…. to protect themselves and to stay neutral.”

Frost talked about a “pressure” to remain silent in the sport due to friendships and jockeys working for the same trainers. In relation to another woman in the sport who denies seeing any wrongdoing by Dunne, Frost added: “She was probably scared if she spoke out honestly. She was probably trying to protect herself.”

Frost went on to explain how she believed jockey weighing rooms needed modernising, with more women now coming into the sport. “When you come into the main room changing… the courses are very dated,” she said. “There are now more female jockeys racing.”

Saunas are being phased out at racecourses, but women generally have to be weighed close to men’s changing areas. “When you go in there to get yourself weighed, or to get your silks, a lot of the males in there will keep their towels on,” Frost explained. “I’ve never been in the sauna. They wouldn’t openly walk around naked.”

As an amateur jockey, Frost won the Foxhunter Chase at the 2017 Cheltenham Festival, riding Pacha Du Polder. She turned professional later that year.

“I remember Robbie through my amateur career being inappropriate,” Frost said. “I remember him opening his towel up and shaking himself in front of us, at one point thinking it was funny. And that’s what I recall.

Frost was repeatedly asked how her treatment by Dunne was worse than it was from other jockeys after she explained how she was teased for her often expressive attitude to media interviews following races.

Moore asked her: “Another jockey [unnamed] calls you a ‘c—’ after a race. Senior rider but you’ve made it clear you don’t have a problem. He calls you a ‘c—’ but that’s fine. Other jockeys tease but that’s fine?”

Frost replied: “There is a difference because it’s frequent. No other jockey attacked me on social media. It was over a long period of time. It wasn’t a kneejerk reaction. That’s why I’m here.”

Frost had first alluded in public to the fall-out following her biggest win to date, on Frodon, in last year’s King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day by which time her complaint to the BHA was already being investigated.  

The BHA said Dunne accepts that “there was that exchange between himself and Ms Frost” and “he accepts he threatened a fellow jockey” during the exchange in question. He suggests that in return for her riding into his path, he would do the same to her at a later race. 

“His factual case is that he said, ‘I’ll put you through’ – and it’s taken from his interview in our bundle – and ‘I’ll do it to you some day – that’s the only way you’re going to learn… If you get hurt, it’s the only way you’re gonna learn’.”

Dunne faces a maximum ban of up to three years if found guilty and a fine of between £1,000 and £15,000. His fate rests in the hands of chair Brian Barker, a former appeal court judge, former judge James O’Mahony and Alison Royston, a former head of administration for the Premier League.

The disciplinary panel was also told of a recent rift between Frost and senior jockey Tom Scudamore, who she explained had “only recently said hello” after blanking her in recent months. 

As part of the BHA investigation,  Scudamore and Nico de Boinville were interviewed for their accounts of Dunne’s behaviour. 

Scudamore is said to have told BHA investigators he did not think Frost had ridden dangerously but that she should have stayed straight prior to Dunne’s eruption of anger. Dunne and Frost did have words in the weighing room but, in his opinion, it was “nothing out of the ordinary”. 

The disciplinary panel was also told of a recent rift between Frost and senior jockey Tom Scudamore, who she explained had “only recently said hello” after blanking her in recent months. As part of the BHA investigation,  Scudamore and Nico De Boinville were interviewed for their accounts of Dunne’s behaviour. 

Scudamore is said to have told BHA investigators he did not think Frost had ridden dangerously but that she should have stayed straight prior to Dunne’s eruption of anger. Dunne and Frost did have words in the weighing room but, in his opinion, it was “nothing out of the ordinary”. 

Hadden Frost, Bryony’s brother and a fellow jockey, was also among witnesses called. “There is a lot of bullying and harassment in racing, full stop,” he told the inquiry.

Day 1: Bryony Frost suffered ‘sexually abusive language’ from Robbie Dunne, BHA panel hears

Bryony Frost faced a campaign of “misogynistic and hateful” attacks from a less successful jockey who threatened to “murder” her during a race, a disciplinary panel heard today.

Robbie Dunne – a self-appointed “enforcer” in racing – is also accused of intimidating Frost by appearing naked outside a sauna while boasting about his conquests with other women jockeys. Dunne accepts verbally attacking Frost for riding dangerously but he denies other charges and the British Horseracing Authority has accused him of “victim blaming”. 

“He believes that he is entitled….to become some enforcer,” said BHA lawyer Louis Weston. On the first day of his bombshell disciplinary hearing, the BHA’s legal team outlined the catalogue of claims brought by the most successful British woman jump jockey in racing. She alleges he “cantered up to me and said something on the lines of, ‘You’re a f—ing w—-, you’re a dangerous c—’, and ‘If you ever f—ing murder [cut across] me like that again, I’ll murder you.’”

Weston detailed how a series of confrontations took place between Dunne and Frost, who would be left in tears, after he apparently took exception to her riding lines in 2020. The feud escalated after Frost was left upset by Dunne’s conduct outside a sauna, which jockeys regularly use to meet racing weight guidelines. During one later row at Southwell racecourse, Dunne is alleged to have told her he would “murder” her in return for her “murdering” him – a reference to dangerous riding. 

“It’s clear and not controversial between the BHA and Mr Dunne that he has in his head that Ms Frost has on occasion cut him up or ridden across his horse as it comes to a fence in a way that he believes to be dangerous or careless… that he believes that he is entitled as a result of that to become some enforcer,” Weston said. 

“To make threats that he is going to do her serious harm, there is no defence whatsoever. No justification for calling someone a f—— w—-, f—— s— or dangerous c—. No excuse for it at all. No justification. The stewards are there to deal with it. But it’s worse than that in the sense that, not only does he add to that misogynistic and hateful way, but he is saying to a fellow jockey, ‘I will cause you serious injuries’.” 

Frost had first alluded in public to the fall-out following her biggest win to date, on Frodon, in last year’s King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day by which time her complaint to the BHA was already being investigated. The BHA said Dunne accepts that “there was that exchange between himself and Ms Frost” and “he accepts he threatened a fellow jockey” during the exchange in question. He suggests that in return for her riding into his path, he would do the same to her at a later race. 

“His factual case is that he said, ‘I’ll put you through’ – and it’s taken from his interview in our bundle – and ‘I’ll do it to you some day – that’s the only way you’re going to learn… If you get hurt, it’s the only way you’re gonna learn’.” Weston added: “What he seems to be saying is that he, as a jockey with his level of experience, he is in some sense entitled to make threats of injury to another as part of an educational process which suggests, Ms Frost, as a more successful jockey than him, needs his direction and guidance.” 

Outlining the case, Weston referred to “foul, sexually abusive language” used by Dunne, adding that there had been an incident of him being inappropriately naked after “he’d been in a sauna” and “made jokes comments about his potential relations with other jockeys”. Frost is alleged to have said “that wasn’t acceptable” before he “started to mock her and tease her in front of others”, Weston added. 

It had not been known before that Dunne accepted the Southwell charge. Such an offence carries a punishment of up to 21 days, but he could be banned for several years if found guilty of all charges. In a case which has major ramifications not just for the weighing room but the BHA itself, the charges relate to three specific race days last year: Stratford on July 8, Uttoxeter on August 17 and Southwell on September 3. It is now 14 months since Frost first lodged her complaint to the BHA, whose head of integrity assurance Chris Watts, the leader of the investigation, left the organisation suddenly three months ago. 

Dunne, who sat through the hearing, faces a maximum ban of up to three years if found guilty and a fine of between £1,000 and £15,000 although he denies the charges against him. His fate rests in the hands of chair Brian Barker, a former appeal court judge, former judge James O’Mahony and Alison Royston, a former head of administration for the Premier League.