{"id":471783,"date":"2026-03-12T16:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T16:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/471783\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T16:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T16:34:09","slug":"cheltenham-festival-2026-nico-de-boinville-and-irish-jockey-declan-queally-shake-hands-after-accusations-of-racial-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/471783\/","title":{"rendered":"Cheltenham Festival 2026: Nico de Boinville and Irish jockey Declan Queally shake hands after accusations of racial abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"

After first accusing De Boinville of being “abusive”, Queally told The Racing Post, external<\/a> on Wednesday he had received “repeated racist abuse” from his rival.<\/p>\n

The Irishman, riding I’ll Sort That, and De Boinville on Act Of Innocence could be seen exchanging words at the start line, but the Englishman denies any wrongdoing. <\/p>\n

De Boinville told BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra on Thursday: “It is an ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n

“The stewards are gathering all the evidence they can from all the video footage.<\/p>\n

“From my point of view, I deny all the allegations against me.<\/p>\n

“I can categorically say there weren’t any racial slurs or anything like that. Let’s let it play out.”<\/p>\n

Queally, 37, appeared to topple off his horse before Wednesday’s race started and had to be checked over by a doctor. He was given the all-clear to race, along with Ballyfad, who was kicked pre-race and assessed by a vet in a chaotic few minutes.<\/p>\n

A number of false starts to the planned rolling start meant the horses were moved to a standing start at the tape – leaving jockeys jostling for position.<\/p>\n

After the race, Queally, who finished fifth, was interviewed by ITV Racing before entering the weight room.<\/p>\n

He said: “Being abused by an English rider, Nico de Boinville, not very nice.<\/p>\n

“I am an amateur, coming over here and riding in front of my kids. Horrific.”<\/p>\n

When informed of Queally’s comments about a difficult start to the race, De Boinville responded: “Maybe he should look in the mirror.”<\/p>\n

Legendary jockey AP McCoy said Queally has “as much right to be there as anyone”, while Ruby Walsh said the start system “hasn’t worked for 20 years”.<\/p>\n

Walsh told ITV: “It’s 2026. How has nobody devised a tape that rolls in front of the horses?<\/p>\n

“The tape should have been in front of them when they went on to the track and it should be moved in front of the horses.<\/p>\n

“We can send missiles after fighter planes in the Gulf, but nobody can design a rolling flyaway tape. That’s the joke.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After first accusing De Boinville of being “abusive”, Queally told The Racing Post, external on Wednesday he had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471784,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-471783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471783\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}