Robbie Dunne was in the paddock here on Fridayas Pretty Little Liar, the horse he had been booked to ride for his brother, David, before the jockey was banned for 18 months on Thursday, paraded before the 1.50pm race. But he declined to offer any comment to reporters after the mare returned to the unsaddling enclosure having been pulled up three out by his replacement, Aidan Coleman. Dunne would not confirm whether he will appeal against an independent panel’s verdict that he subjected fellow rider Bryony Frost to a seven-month campaign of bullying and harassment. Several of his former colleagues in the weighing room also seemed reluctant to comment on the outcome of the case, or even on the outcome of the races at Cheltenham, the home of jump racing. Rumours began to circulate that there was an organised boycott of the media in progress to protest about the claim by Louis Weston, the British Horseracing Authority’s counsel in the case, that there is a “sour, rancid culture” in the weighing room which “should be thrown out and discarded”. Eventually Charlie Deutsch broke the silence, after winning the day’s feature event on Commodore. “There is not one person in the weighing room that is rancid and there is not a rancid atmosphere,” Deutsch told ITV Racing’s reporter, Alice Plunkett, after pulling up. “There’s a lot of intelligent, kind, caring people in there and it has affected them hugely.” “Everyone’s an individual character and they’ve tarnished everyone with the same brush,” Deutsch added. “There’s no need for it anyway, and it’s upset a lot of the jockeys. There’s always scope for change in any situation at any time, and things can always get better, but I just think the way they’ve done it is not right.” In the immediate aftermath of Thursday’s verdict in the case, the Professional Jockeys’ Association (PJA) issued a statement which seemed to stop short of acknowledging that Frost had been bullied by Dunne, and accepted only that she had “felt” bullied. Jon Holmes, the chairman of the PJA, declined an invitation to speak to press reporters here, but stuck to that line in an interview with ITV Racing. “I accept that she felt bullied, absolutely,” Holmes told presenter Ed Chamberlin. “As I say, this is subject to appeal, so I can’t go into the case, but of course I accept that. She is one of our members. “We offered help in the first place to her, I myself spent a lot of time on the phone with her. I couldn’t do anything in person due to the Covid restrictions [but] one of our board members has spent a great deal of time talking to her throughout this and we will continue to offer her help.” Holmes also told Chamberlin that he could “understand how it’s been portrayed in the media and so on, I understand the reasons behind that. Of course I do, I’d be stupid if I didn’t. But what I can tell you is that in the main, these people are professional, hard-working, decent people. There may be isolated incidents, I’m not going to go into that now because there may be an appeal going on, and we also have to look forward to where we’re going to.” Holmes, a former chairman of Leicester City football club, said that when he took on the role of PJA chairman in December 2020, he was “astonished that racing itself and the PJA didn’t have a code of conduct”. He added: “We now do. Every jockey has seen that and it will be displayed prominently in all weighing rooms around the country.” While Dunne continues to ponder an appeal, Frost was at Doncaster on Friday, where she drew a blank from three rides. Frost has two booked rides on the televised card from the same track on Saturday, on Sonigino (2.05) and Magistrato (2.40).