Patrick O'Brien

Grand National Festival winner Laafi (Cloth Of Stars) has been disqualified after jockey Patrick O'Brien was found to have breached whip regulations. The six-year-old, trained in Ireland by William Durkan, was a 20-1 winner of the Debenhams Handicap Hurdle at Aintree on Friday, a race restricted to conditional jockeys and amateur riders. The British Horseracing Authority's Whip Review Committee subsequently found that O'Brien had used his whip four times above the permitted level of seven from jumping the second last and, taking into account that none of the uses were...