Mahdi faces UK jockey club
Former Newmarket-based trainer Kamil Mahdi faces being warned off by the Jockey Club’s disciplinary panel tomorrow after having an appeal dismissed over a lifetime ban on keeping horses.
Mahdi was ordered by Bury St Edmunds magistrates in February to carry out 240 hours community service and to pay £6,000 (€€8,600) costs.
He had pleaded guilty to five charges of causing unnecessary suffering to five animals in his care in a prosecution initiated by the RSPCA.
He appealed to Ipswich Crown Court but the case was kicked out in July after he failed to attend a scheduled hearing for a third time. He was also fined £2,000 (€2,800) court costs.
That cleared the way for the UK Jockey Club to bring disciplinary charges against Mahdi, whose best horse was Almushtarak, winner of the Sandown Mile and second to Dubai Millennium in the Queen Elizabeth II Stakes.
The court charges related to the treatment of Desert Warrior, Chillisima, Awassi, Hamadeen and Mount Holly between December 13, 2001 and February 7, 2002; a period when Mahdi no longer held a trainer’s licence, but was still based at Green Ridge Stables in the Hamilton Road.
Mahdi’s last runner was on November 6, 2000.
His licence lapsed on January 31, 2001 and his application for renewal was turned down. He was subsequently declared a disqualified person for failing to pay debts.
The panel will also look at his attendance at Nottingham racecourse during their meeting on October 23 last year whilst he was disqualified.
The last comparable case of a former licensed/permitted person being convicted for causing unnecessary suffering to horses in his care was John Leyland, a former permit holder, who was convicted at Blackburn Magistrates Court in 1997.
He was made a disqualified person by the disciplinary panel for 10 years. He last held a permit to train in 1992.
