Pipe and Moore decide against Celtic Son appeal
The champion trainer was hit with a £3,000 fine and Moore was suspended for 21 days, with star hurdler Celtic Son banned from running for 40 days.
Moore was penalised under the non-trier rule, with Pipe’s offence covering the instructions he gave.
The jockey’s suspension ends on March 14, the day before the Cheltenham Festival starts, while Celtic Son has been ruled out of the meeting.
Solicitor Rory Mac Neice, acting for Pipe and Moore, revealed that he had advised them both to contest the decision.
“My advice to Jamie and Martin was that they had strong grounds for an appeal,” he said.
“There were a lot of questions that needed answering as a result of the inquiry last Thursday.
“Over the weekend I sensed that they were not going to appeal as they did not want Jamie to go through the whole process again.
“I felt that effectively Martin wanted to protect Jamie, but I told them that they had grounds for an appeal.”
The Pipe team have explained on the trainer’s website, www.martinpipe.co.uk, that they would have appealed had the inquiry not been so close to the Cheltenham Festival.
Part of a long article on the website says: “After discussions with our lawyers who were categoric that we had strong grounds to appeal, Martin felt that it would be unfair to Jamie to ask him to go through for a second time what he had to endure last Thursday and for him to risk missing Cheltenham in the process. We all feel that Jamie is a huge talent and he has been really hurt by all of this.”
