Danny Cook – six month holiday
The most successful season of jump jockey Danny Cook’s career came to an abrupt end on Thursday when the 31-year-old rider was banned for six months after returning a positive drugs test for a metabolite of cocaine.
Cook admitted the offence when he attended a British Horseracing Authority disciplinary hearing in London on Thursday morning, and will be banned until 24 August for making what Rory Mac Neice, his solicitor, described as “a catastrophic error of judgment”.
Cook gave a urine sample to a BHA testing team at Musselburgh on 1 February, a meeting at which he had six booked rides. He did not request testing of his “B” sample to confirm the positive finding and co-operated with the BHA’s investigation from an early stage, factors that Mac Neice argued should have led to a reduced suspension. The panel, however, decided to set Cook’s ban at the entry-point level of six months.
In a statement following the hearing, the panel said that it had decided on the penalty “notwithstanding Cook’s co-operation post-notification of the positive test, because as an experienced jockey, taking a substance, which later proved to be an illegal Class A drug, the night before he was booked to take six rides, which he then rode, was a serious matter”.
Speaking on Cook’s behalf, Mac Neice said: “Danny made what he described as a catastrophic error of judgement in taking cocaine when on a rare night out earlier this year. He has been given a six-month suspension which is in line with the BHA’s penalty guidance and Danny entirely accepts that penalty.”
Cook has not ridden since 24 February, when the news of his positive test emerged, but had already recorded 31 winners in the current season, his best total in 13 years with a licence.
Nineteen of his winners came for the Brian Ellison stable while seven more were saddled by Sue Smith, whose Wakanda gave Cook only the second Grade Two win of his career in a novice chase at Haydock in January.
Prior to Thursday’s hearing, the most significant bans on Cook’s record occurred when he took the wrong course during a race on three separate occasions in little more than a year. He was banned for 12, 28 and then 22 days for the three offences.
“He has served a month of it already and will keep riding out through the summer,” Bruce Jeffrey, Cook’s agent, said on Thursday. “I’ve already been told by both Sue and Harvey Smith and Brian Ellison that when he returns, they will carry on using him.”
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