Racing

France’s top jockey charged with rape

Boudot had been due to ride favourite St Mark’s Basilica in French 2000 Guineas on Sunday

Pierre-Charles Boudot. Photograph: Alan Crowhurst/PA

Greg Wood
Wed May 12 2021 - 19:33

Pierre-Charles Boudot, France’s reigning champion jockey on the Flat, was charged with rape on Wednesday by French prosecutors investigating allegations made by a female work-rider after a party during a race meeting at Cagnes-sur-Mer in February.

Pierre Bazire, also a jockey, faces a charge of failing to report a crime in connection with the same allegations, while an unnamed individual was also listed, along with Bazire, as a “witness to intimidation of a witness”.

A statement issued by the office of the public prosecutor in Senlis, which includes France’s major racing centre at Chantilly, said that Boudot had been released on bail of €50,000 and is barred from entering the department of Oise, of which Senlis is a part, under the bail conditions. He had been remanded in custody to assist with the investigation since Monday.

Boudot won the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe on Waldgeist in 2019 and won the French Flat jockeys’ title in 2015, 2016 and 2020.

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He set what was at the time a new record for winners in a season in France with 300 victories in 2016, and rode a double on the main card at last season’s Breeders’ Cup meeting in Kentucky on Aidan O’Brien’s Order Of Australia and Audarya for James Fanshawe after the original jockeys booked for both horses tested positive for Covid-19.

It was unclear on Wednesday evening whether France Galop, racing’s ruling body in France, would respond to the news of the charges against the champion jockey, or move to suspend Boudot from riding until the investigation is complete.

He had been expected to ride O’Brien’s colt St Mark’s Basilica, the probable favourite, in the Poule D’Essai Des Poulains, the French 2,000 Guineas, at Longchamp on Sunday.

– Guardian

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