{"id":342995,"date":"2026-03-12T20:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T20:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/342995\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T20:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T20:44:10","slug":"declan-queally-and-nico-de-boinville-shake-hands-after-davy-russell-acts-as-peacemaker-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/342995\/","title":{"rendered":"Declan Queally and Nico de Boinville shake hands after Davy Russell acts as peacemaker \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The rain fell at Cheltenham<\/a> on Thursday but it was nothing compared to the flood of relief felt by racing in general when Irish amateur jockey Declan Queally and top English rider Nico de Boinville shook hands on ITV and tried to diffuse the sport\u2019s unlikely racism row<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Former champion jockey Davy Russell was peacemaker following the previous day\u2019s remarkable row which saw Queally accuse De Boinville of \u201crepeated racial abuse\u201d after a clash at the start of the Turners Novice Hurdle. <\/p>\n

The 38-year-old Irishman complained to the racecourse stewards after the race about \u201chorrific\u201d abuse and later told the Racing Post it was racial in nature.<\/p>\n

On Thursday De Boinville told the BBC that he denied all allegations against him and commented: \u201cI can categorically say there wasn\u2019t any racial slurs or anything like that. Let\u2019s let it play out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The British Horseracing Authority launched an investigation and although that will continue, and won\u2019t be concluded before the festival ends, there was sense of a line being drawn with the jockeys\u2019 gesture.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll sorted, just heat-of-the-moment battle,\u201d said the Irishman as the two jockeys shook hands at the entrance to the weighroom. \u201cAll is forgiven and best of luck to Nico in the future.\u201d As for De Boinville he commented: \u201cI appreciate Declan and wish him the best. A big thanks to Davy Russell for sorting this all out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Queally later commented: \u201cIt was heated down there, we\u2019re sportspeople and as was said, tempers can rise. But we\u2019ll see what the BHA say. I told the BHA what was said so that\u2019s all I\u2019m saying. It was very heated and I could see how competitive it was. There was a lot of swearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was where Nico wanted to be and unfortunately what happened, happened. Everyone has cooled down now, hopefully it can be resolved, and we can put the matter behind us.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also added: \u201cNico\u2019s blood was up at the start and he probably shouldn\u2019t have said what he said but I think people should enjoy the Cheltenham Festival rather than the media swarming around me, it\u2019s a silly thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was effing and blinding, there was a racial comment thrown, I\u2019ve told the BHA but I\u2019d prefer to enjoy my day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separately, the body that represents Ireland\u2019s jockeys insists there is no element of racism between British-based riders and their Irish counterparts. The secretary of the Irish Jockeys\u2019 Association Andrew Coonan said that there is no anti-Irish sentiment among British jockeys.<\/p>\n

Coonan wouldn\u2019t comment on the issue involving Queally and De Boinville as it is still under investigation but pointed to the number of Irish jockeys who are based in Britain and making their living there.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is absolutely no sense of anti-Irish sentiment among riders in the UK,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would point to the leading riders in the UK, the majority are Irish or were riding in Ireland previously. It isn\u2019t an issue. It never has been an issue. I\u2019ve been doing this job for 34 years and I\u2019ve never come across an element of racism.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe find ourselves in a very heated cauldron that many riders go out to ride in. Riders are over and back [Ireland to Britain and vice versa] all the time and it simply isn\u2019t an issue,\u201d Coonan added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The rain fell at Cheltenham on Thursday but it was nothing compared to the flood of relief felt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[151390,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-342995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-cheltenham-festival","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}