KEY POINTS:
A lawyer for Bruce Herd says his partner's training stable is likely to suffer after the jockey was banished from racing for 15 months on Friday.
Herd and champion jockey Opie Bosson were disqualified after Bosson was found to have provided a urine sample for Herd at the
Waikato Racing Club's meeting on October 3.
Bosson was outed until March 1.
Lawyer Peter Brosnahan said Herd's partner Lisa Latta's Manawatu training stable had grown from six horses to 45 and employed over a dozen people, the Waikato Times reported.
He said Herd played an integral part in the running of the operation and with the ban extending to training establishments, it would have a negative impact.
"That will mean the number of horses and staff of 15 now employed there will be dramatically reduced," Brosnahan said.
"She can't run the stable without him. Take away his ability to work for her and you take away her ability to function at the level she does now."
Meanwhile, Bosson, who has at times in his career struggled to maintain a riding weight, said his ban would again leave him exposed to that problem.
"It will make it hard getting back because I can't get fit riding work," he said. "I just wish I hadn't done it."
Herd said he felt sorry for Bosson for "dragging him into it", and did so because he had smoked cannabis and taken diuretics.
Herd has won over 1000 races on his mounts, while Bosson, who is second on this season's jockeys' premiership with 29 wins, has had to give up riding star galloper Princess Coup, who won the Kelt Stakes last month.
His lawyer said the disqualification could cost him up to $140,000 in lost earnings.
The two men faced a three-hour Judicial Control Authority hearing at Te Rapa racecourse on Friday after an investigation begun after a tip off that Bosson had provided the urine sample for Herd. The sample did not fail the test.
* Herd's partner Lisa Latta produced promising stayer Jonbalena to win the Feilding Gold Cup on Saturday but his current campaign is likely to be drawing to an end.
The 2100m of the $75,000 race at Awapuni was just Jonbalena's fourth start over a middle-distance but he came from last in the nine-horse field to win comfortably.
Latta said she would consider the $75,000 Wanganui Cup (2040m) on November 29 for Jonbalena but she was not looking much beyond that.
"He's been up a long time. We'll just get through Wanganui first and make a decision from there."
- NZPA
