Jockey Dylan Kitts has been banned for nine years after being found guilty of deliberately preventing a horse from winning at Worcester in July 2023.
The 24-year-old rider, along with associate John Higgins — who received a 12-year disqualification — was sanctioned at a British Horseracing Authority (BHA) disciplinary panel hearing on Monday. The pair were ruled to have conspired to stop the horse from achieving its best possible placing.
Trainer Chris Honour, who the panel determined was not involved in the plot, was fined £750 for misleading stewards following the race in which Kitts’s mount, Hillsin, finished a length and a quarter behind after the jockey blatantly prevented the gelding from winning.
🚨🐎John Higgins and Dylan Kitts have been found guilty in a disciplinary panel for preventing Hillsin from winning with the ride below at Worcester in 2023 and have received 12 and nine year bans respectively pic.twitter.com/hSqG2X5mlf
— Park Life Sport (@ParkLife_Sport) November 24, 2025
The panel acknowledged Kitts’s age — he was just 21 at the time — and found he had been effectively groomed by Higgins, then 77, who lured him with promises of future rides. They accepted Kitts’s later remorse as genuine and determined he was not the driving force behind the conspiracy.
Higgins, father-in-law to Burnley footballer Ashley Barnes, had already been placed on the BHA’s exclusion list in March 2024 for failing to cooperate with the investigation. His ban has been backdated to that date, while Kitts’s ban is backdated to the week after the race, when his licence was suspended.
In a statement, the BHA said: “The penalties handed down to John Higgins and Dylan Kitts today for conspiring to prevent Hillsin from winning sends a clear message that British racing will not tolerate conduct of this kind.
“Running and riding horses to achieve their best possible position is the minimum standard expected by all participants in British racing. It is vital that those engaging with the sport have confidence that what they are seeing unfold on the track is clean and fair.
“The actions of Mr Higgins and Mr Kitts, which disregarded that basic expectation, undermined the efforts of the tens of thousands of people who work tirelessly across the country to ensure British racing remains a global leader built on a culture of integrity and fair competition. We therefore welcome the sanctions imposed by the independent Disciplinary Panel, which reflect the seriousness of this breach of the Rules of Racing.
“This investigation was extensive in its nature, not dissimilar to a complex fraud case. Significant quantities of evidence were analysed and numerous interviews conducted, while this was also the first in which telephone data extraction powers were utilised. Such work calls for detailed scrutiny of large amounts of data in order for it to be translated into tangible information and to fulfil our disclosure obligation. Given the seriousness of the allegations in this case, it is right that all appropriate efforts were made to reach this outcome.”
Hillsin moved to a new stable soon after the race and has since won three times. He is entered for the 2pm race at Hereford on Tuesday for trainer Alan Jones. Kitts is now believed to be employed outside the racing industry.
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