Multiple group 1-winning jockey Dwayne Dunn is suing Racing Victoria and the Moonee Valley Racing Club for negligence over the head injury that ended his riding career.
Dunn has lodged the civil suit in Melbourne’s Supreme Court, hiring renowned litigation experts Carbone Lawyers as his representative.
Caulfield Cup-winning jockey Dwayne Dunn is suing Racing Victoria and the Moonee Valley Racing Club over a head injury which ended his career.Credit:Pat Scala
Dunn suffered neck fractures and concussion on September 5, 2020 when the horse he was riding – Shot Of Irish – reared in the Moonee Valley barriers, forcing Dunn’s head up into a steel horizontal bar.
Dunn returned to race riding in February 2021, but rode in just four races before retiring permanently due to the ongoing effects of his concussion.
Among Dunn’s allegations, he claims Racing Victoria failed to ensure The Valley replaced the barrier stalls with new ones with a steel horizontal bar at a minimum of 2.8 metres above the ground.
The 49-year-old says that the Victoria Racing Club, Melbourne Racing Club and other racing clubs have stalls with bars set at 2.8 metres or higher, but says the barriers used by The Valley were “antiquated by industry standards”.
A long list of injuries were detailed in the statement of claim, including fracture of the C5/6 vertebrae, chronic neck pain, headaches and depression, and post-concussive syndrome.
“As a result of the severe injuries, with resultant permanent disability from which [Dunn] suffered, he has been unable to resume employment in the racing industry and in particular, as a professional jockey,” Dunn’s lawyers wrote in the claim.
“Apart from having attempted to do so, unsuccessfully, on three occasions, [Dunn] has lost income at the rate he was earning at the date of the accident.”
The claim says Dunn earned a gross sum of $442,175 in the financial year of 2019-20, and despite earning $1000 a day working in the racing media during the Victorian spring carnival, he “has been, and will remain, totally incapacitated for employment and will lose income at the aforesaid rate.”
His lawyers claim he could have kept riding at the elite level until the age of 60.
Dunn won more than 20 group 1 races, including a Caulfield Cup on Tawqeet in 2006 and four Blue Diamonds, and also was associated with star gallopers All Too Hard and Chautauqua. Last year, he was inducted into South Australian racing’s Hall Of Fame.
Racing Victoria declined to comment when contacted by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
