Sir Mark Todd to face disciplinary hearing after hitting horse with branch

Sir Mark Todd will face a disciplinary hearing on Thursday after a video on social media showed him hitting a horse with a branch.

The former Olympic equestrian champion turned racehorse trainer was given an interim suspension last month.

The 65-year-old New Zealander has apologised for his actions.

An independent panel of the British Horseracing Authority will consider whether his conduct was prejudicial to racing’s reputation.

Todd, who trains in Wiltshire, is accused of striking a horse multiple times with a tree branch on 29 August, 2020.

The video shows Todd hitting the horse while attempting to coax it towards the water jump in a cross-country schooling session.

He is unable to race horses while the interim suspension is in place.

Todd won individual eventing golds at the Los Angeles Olympics in 1984 and Seoul in 1988 – and earned a knighthood for his equestrian achievements in 2013.

He became a racehorse trainer in 2019 after retiring from three-day eventing.

“I wholeheartedly apologise to the horse and all involved for my actions in this video clip,” he said in a statement last month.

Todd stepped down as a patron of the World Horse Welfare charity which said: “The treatment of the horse in this video is disturbing and unacceptable.

“There is no place in the horse-human partnership for such use of force.”