Aidan Coleman was allegedly assaulted in the weighing room at Southwell in a shocking incident as racing ended there on Tuesday. The high-profile jump jockey was said to have been the victim of an attack by a racegoer who has been arrested but remains unidentified.
The incident was witnessed by Paul Moloney, who, along with Coleman, was among the five jockeys who took part in the final race. “When I came into the weighing room after the last, there were these two blokes there,” Moloney said on Tuesday night. “They looked pretty drunk to me.”
Moloney described his fellow rider as “shaken” but not seriously injured. He believed Coleman had not been known to his attacker or singled out for any reason other than having happened to be on the spot, adding: “I don’t think these guys knew anything much about racing.”
Coleman was unavailable for comment last night but officials said he had been assessed by a racecourse doctor after the incident and passed fit to ride again on Wednesday. He is believed to have sustained a bloody nose and chipped teeth.
Southwell’s stewards issued a brief report on the incident, recording that they had heard from several witnesses, including the jockeys Tom Scudamore and Adam Pogson. The stewards compiled their evidence and passed it to the British Horseracing Authority “for further consideration”. A total of four arrests were made by police, with Nottinghamshire police reporting them as “two men and one woman arrested on suspicion of assault and criminal damage and another woman for obstructing police”.
“I’ve seen drunken lads get into the weighing room before,” Moloney added. “They might be looking for a toilet or something. We should have a security guy on the back door of the weighing room. Since the smoking law came out, there’s always a little area outside the back door where you can go for a smoke.”
Moloney suggested this was a security weak spot at several tracks. There were conflicting suggestions on Tuesday night as to how Coleman’s assailant gained access to Southwell’s weighing room, some saying the back door had been forced while others suggested it had been left open by a valet taking tack out to a vehicle.
Moloney added that tracks should consider clamping down on racegoers’ access to alcohol and praised Chester for introducing a ban on alcohol being brought into the course. Southwell is owned by ARC, which says it already has such a policy in place across all its racecourses.
As a complicating factor, the weighing room is required to be a secure area during racing under BHA regulations but that requirement ends after the final race has been run.
The Southwell incident comes almost exactly a year after three men were banned from all ARC tracks for an incident at Worcester when an empty beer can was thrown at Tony McCoy. Eyewitness at the time said a racegoer had hurled abuse at the champion jump jockey shortly before the can was thrown.
