Maguire cleared to ride in Stan James Champion Hurdle after winning ban appeal

By Marcus Townend for the Daily Mail Updated: 09:03 EST, 5 March 2011

Jason Maguire has been spared the agony of missing the Champion Hurdle ride on unbeaten Peddlers Cross after having a ban reduced on appeal.

Donald McCain's stable jockey succeeded in having a seven-day suspension for his use of the whip on Cool Mission at Doncaster last month cut by a day.

Maguire said: 'I'm absolutely delighted. It's brilliant to get back in the Champion Hurdle. It's all systems go now.

'It's been hanging over me in the last few days but I've had a lot of support from fellow jockeys and from people at the races.'

'It's very important for the horse. He looks fantastic and I'm looking forward to riding him.'

His revised suspension now ends on March 14, just 24 hours before Maguire races for the biggest prize of his career on the 5-1 shot who is disputing the third favourite slot in the £370,000 Champion Hurdle.

Doncaster stewards had banned Maguire for five days for causing weals on Cool Mission, who finished second to Beshabar in a beginners chase.

But it was an additional ban of two days for using his whip with excessive frequency that the BHA disciplinary appeal committee reduced by a day, leaving him free to partner Peddlers Cross.

QC Graeme McPherson swayed the BHA panel with his mitigating plea that not all of Maguire's 18 whipstrokes - two more than the recommended limit - were delivered forcefully and that the rider had put down his whip shortly before the line when he accepted that his mount was beaten.

Had Maguire's appeal failed, McCain's Champion Hurdle plans would have been thrown into disarray as the jockey has ridden Peddlers Cross in all his seven races.

His joy at winning his appeal will be matched by the relief felt by Ruby Walsh, whose own Festival dreams are alive again as he returns to action at Newbury today for his first ride since breaking his leg in November.

Walsh partners Don't Turn Bach in the two-mile handicap hurdle for Paul Nicholls.