Bradley to face Jockey Club following Wright trial

Former top National Hunt jockey Graham Bradley is to face a disciplinary hearing of the Jockey Club.

The move follows the lifting of reporting restrictions surrounding the 'Operation Extend' trials, in which Brian Brendan Wright, who has been widely linked to the world of horse racing, is alleged to have masterminded a drugs operation covering not only Britain, but Australia and America as well.

A string of court cases here and abroad, including - at 14 months - the second longest trial in English criminal history led to 15 convictions worldwide.

Wright is still the subject of an international arrest warrant.

Bradley, now a successful bloodstock agent, rode a host of big winners during a long and distinguished career in the saddle, including the 1983 Cheltenham Gold Cup on Bregawn and the 1996 Champion Hurdle on Collier Bay.

He is one of three men to have been contacted, either directly or through solicitors, by the Jockey Club of their intentions to hold disciplinary hearings in relation to evidence given during the trial of Barrie Wright at Southampton Crown Court in September and October last year.

The other two are Barrie Wright himself, also a former licensed individual, and Christopher Coleman, an unlicensed individual.

Wright was acquitted of charges of conspiring to import cocaine during the Southampton trial.

The Jockey Club also confirmed that it will hold disciplinary hearings to consider whether or not to impose exclusion orders on Brian Brendan Wright, his son Brian Anthony Wright, Ian Kiernan and Paul Shannon.

Dates of the hearings have yet to be announced.

Ex-jockey Dermot Browne is currently the subject to a 10-year period of disqualification imposed by the Jockey Club in October 1992.

Prior to the expiry of that penalty, the disciplinary committee confirmed it will consider his admission of doping horses in 1990.