John Dawson hit with 14-day whip ban for winning ride on Cheltenham Gold Cup day

John Dawson has been given a 14-day whip ban for his Cheltenham Festival-winning ride aboard Sine Nomine in the Hunters' Chase.

The amateur jockey was penalised for using the whip two times more than the permitted count of seven. The suspension was doubled as the Hunters' Chase was an amateur-restricted Class 2 race. He was also fined £275.

The whip review committee, the three-person panel responsible for issuing disciplinary action, handed out four bans at the Cheltenham Festival – a decrease from six offences last year.

Mark Walsh received two separate whip bans at the festival. He picked up a four-day suspension for using his whip in the incorrect place after the final fence aboard impressive Brown Advisory Novices' Chase winner Fact To File and was found to have committed the same breach twice when riding Majborough to land the Triumph Hurdle.

Dawson was the only British-based rider to be penalised with Patrick Mullins set to be out for eight days. He was disciplined for using his whip without giving his mount, Embassy Gardens, sufficient time to respond and for using it in the incorrect place in the National Hunt Chase.

A combined 33 days issued by the panel is only three days fewer than the total given out at the Cheltenham Festival last year, a meeting which came shortly after the new rules were introduced.

Dawson will be suspended for the Foxhunters' at Aintree but Sine Nomine's trainer Fiona Needham has already ruled the Cheltenham hero out of the race. Mullins will also be absent but, like Dawson, he is only suspended on the first day of the three-day Grand National meeting. 

Walsh's suspension does not coincide with Aintree, although it does not rule him out of the entirety of Fairyhouse's Irish Grand National meeting.

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