Grand National jockey suspended for continuing to race exhausted horse Celebre D’Allen

Micheal Nolan has been suspended for 10 days after Celebre D’Allen collapsed due to exhaustion during the Grand National.

Celebre D’Allen was one of two horses that required immediate treatment from veterinary teams after Saturday’s race, with Broadway Boy also needing urgent care after a nasty fall on his neck at Valentine’s Brook.

Both horses were eventually able to walk off the racecourse at Aintree and into a horse ambulance after receiving treatment.

In the aftermath of the race, a stewards’ inquiry was opened into Nolan’s handling of Celebre D’Allen, a 125-1 outsider, after the horse was pulled up shortly after jumping the final fence.

The 13-year-old, trained by Philip Hobbs and Johnson White, struggled to overcome the penultimate fence and was losing ground but Nolan opted to continue racing.

The British Horseracing Authority’s stewards’ report read: ‘An inquiry was held to consider whether Micheal Nolan, the rider of Celebre d’Allen, had continued in the race when the horse appeared to have no more to give and was clearly losing ground after the second-last fence.

‘The rider and the veterinary officer were interviewed, and recordings of the incident were viewed. The rider was suspended for 10 days.’

Nolan is now banned from racing on April 19-26, and May 3 and 5.

Racing TV presenter, Nick Luck, said of the investigation into Nolan’s ride of Celebre D’Allen: ‘Clearly when you’ve got a race that was run at a searching gallop, in relative heat for the time of year, it’s absolutely imperative, and jockey’s are told that if your horse has given all that horse can give, you must pull up, and that’s what they’ll be assessing now, whether the horse should and could have been pulled up before he was.’

Racing TV analyst Martin Dixon added: ‘I think it’s absolutely right they have that inquiry, isn’t it. They’ve got to look into that.

‘There’s no question that at the point he pulled up he was a tired horse, wasn’t he.

‘Fingers crossed he is okay, he’s obviously walked into the horse ambulance, so that’s a semi-positive sign.’

Nick Rockett, a 33-1 outsider, held off competition from pre-race favourite, I Am Maximus, to win the Grand National.

Tom Bellamy, the jockey of Broadway Boy, was also taken to hospital.

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