Posted on: March 4, 2024, 06:46h.
Last updated on: March 4, 2024, 06:46h.
An Australian horse racing trainer got wasted and pulled down a compliance officer’s pants and underwear in front of a crowd at the Kangaroo Island racetrack, The Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Unfortunately for trainer Todd Balfour, regulator Racing South Australia, which employed the official, failed to see the funny side.
Last week, it banned Balfour from the sport for five years after he admitted to breaking the rules of racing — specifically to engaging in “misconduct, improper conduct, and unseemly behavior.”
Reprehensible Actions
A penitent Balfour told a tribunal that he had no recollection of dropping the official’s slacks and exposing him to a cheering crowd in a non-consensual fashion, a practice known as “dacking” in Australian slang. It happened because he had consumed a large amount of alcohol, he confessed.
The tribunal concluded that Balfour’s actions were “reprehensible and highly inappropriate” but stopped short of imposing the maximum penalty available, which was ten years.
That was largely because of Balfour’s good standing in the industry and a record that included 57 wins from 697 runners between 2010 and 2017 as a trainer.
Prior to that, Balfour enjoyed a moderately successful career as a jockey. Regulators also considered his guilty plea and the fact that he had apologized to the employee.
Fully Exposed
“Stewards … had regard for his forthrightness at the inquiry, his longstanding involvement in the industry, his personal circumstances, and the fact that he showed remorse for his conduct which included an apology to the Racing SA compliance officer,” the tribunal found.
However, stewards also considered the serious nature of the conduct, the resultant distress caused to an official, and that objectively viewed, by any reasonable person, such conduct would be considered reprehensible and extremely inappropriate,” Racing SA added.
The tribunal noted that the unfortunate employee was “fully exposed from the waist down to numerous parties present.”
Despite the relative leniency of the sentence and Balfour’s guilty plea, he is expected to appeal, according to the Herald.
It’s not the first time Balfour has found himself in trouble with authorities when booze has been involved. In September 2021, he pleaded guilty to driving an unregistered and uninsured vehicle while almost three times over the blood-alcohol limit.
Balfour was banned from driving for six months and issued a $900 fine.
