Kinchen gets 2-year-ban from horseplayers championship

Jonathon Kinchen, who was disqualified from last month’s National Horseplayers Championship for trying to play from a remote location, has been suspended from NHC competitions for at least two years, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association announced Tuesday.

Without using Kinchen’s name, an NTRA statement said “at the end of the two-year suspension, the player may request to the NTRA to be reinstated to the NHC Tour.”

Reached for his reaction, Kinchen told Horse Racing Nation he would not comment for the record.

“Maintaining the integrity of the NHC is of the utmost importance,” NTRA president and CEO Tom Rooney said in the Tuesday statement, which indicated the punishment came about “following discussions and a recommendation by the NHC Players Committee.”

Kinchen, a former member of that committee, admitted he left the NHC’s Las Vegas venue and went to South Florida to attend the Pegasus World Cup Invitational (G1). From there he tried to play in the Jan. 28-30 tournament through a runner, a violation of the NHC rule that requires competitors to be on site.

“I apologize to my fellow competitors for distracting any attention away from the event itself,” Kinchen wrote in a Twitter post the day after the NHC. “At the time I did not believe that I was violating any tournament rules. … I accept the disqualification.”

The NTRA said it was the first time in the 23 years of the NHC that a contestant was disqualified.