Kiwi Olympic legend Sir Mark Todd faces a British Horseracing Authority hearing this week, after video emerged of him beating a horse with a three branch.
The two-time Olympic gold medallist was suspended last month, when the video surfaced on social media, causing outrage in the equestrian community, including calls for him to be stripped of his knighthood.
Sir Mark, 65, admitted he was the culprit and publicly apologised for the incident, believed to have occurred in Scotland, but the Scottish SPCA insisted it could not take action against him, as the incident was more than six months old, dating back to August 2020.
"I wholeheartedly apologise to the horse and all involved for my actions in this video clip," he said.
Todd also stood down as patron of the World Horse Welfare charity, which commented: "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."
Wiltshire-based Todd began training racehorses in 2019, after his retirement from eventing, and the British Horseracing Authority seems determined to take this matter further, convening an independent panel to consider whether his actions were prejudicial to the sport's reputation.
