Trainer fined for severed horse-head threat

[Shadows]

Tue Jun 2, 2009 11:51am EDT

MELBOURNE - Australian racing officials have fined a local trainer who threatened to shoot his horses and send their heads to a government minister after a decision to suspend jumps racing in the wake of a string of horse deaths.

Racing administrators in the southern state of Victoria stopped racing last month after three horses died during a country carnival but reinstated the sport less than two weeks later after a review.

The suspension had prompted David "Butch" Londregan to tell local media he would "ring the knackery and start shooting his horses straight away" if the review panel moved to ban jumps racing.

Londregan also said he would send videos of the shootings and "a few" horse heads to Victoria's racing minister, the head of the state's racing regulatory body and animal rights groups.

The trainer had been fined $5,000, of which $4,000 would be suspended, after he pleaded guilty to "conduct prejudicial to the image of racing," Racing Victoria spokesman Damian Booth told Reuters Tuesday.

"The suspended $4,000 is reliant on no more derogatory comments until May (next year)," Booth said.

The sport's suspension had polarized opinion in Victoria, where the biggest carnivals attract tens of thousands of people but draw fierce criticism from vocal animal rights groups.

Londregan told local media the fine was a "good result" but said he regretted his comments.

"I wish I had used better words and not caused all this hoo-ha," he told the Herald-Sun newspaper.

"It was said in the heat of the moment. I'm pleased I've sort of saved jumps racing and I hope it survives for the next 100 years."