"Great Bums": The WhatsApp Group Nobody Is Talking About

Lambourn trainer Jamie Osborne, 58, has been handed a three-month suspension of his training licence, itself suspended for six months, after he was found to have photographed a woman's clothed bottom without her consent at a racecourse and intended to share the image in a WhatsApp group called "Great Bums."

The incident took place in the paddock before a race at an evening meeting in the summer of 2025. According to the written reasons published by the British Horseracing Authority on 12 June 2026, Osborne, present in his capacity as a licensed trainer and racehorse owner, was seen photographing a woman, referred to throughout the ruling only as Person A, who was attending alongside her partner, Person B. The image included one of her clothed rear, taken without her knowledge or consent.

He was reported to stewards on the day. Osborne initially denied taking any photograph, then admitted he had done so and permanently deleted it when confronted.

In a BHA interview three weeks later, Osborne said he had taken the photograph intending to share it in a WhatsApp group named "Great Bums" or similar. He acknowledged it was obvious from the group's name that this had not been the only occasion on which he had taken photographs of women without their consent, though the panel was given no further examples and the group has since been disbanded.

The disciplinary panel was satisfied that taking the photograph amounted to unwanted conduct that was sexual in nature and that violated the dignity of Person A. It noted the upset, embarrassment, distress and shock she experienced, her subsequent nervousness about attending race fixtures, and her concern that the images had likely been shared with what she believed to be older men. The panel concluded the behaviour did not meet the threshold for "sexual misconduct" as defined in the code of conduct, and treated it as a less serious matter.

The ruling recorded that both Person A and Person B felt Osborne's initial instinct had been to downplay what he had done. Both said they would not wish for any other participant in horse racing to experience the same, particularly a young woman, and that it was not conduct to be expected of a respected trainer in the industry. When Osborne argued in mitigation that the case had caused him embarrassment, the panel dismissed it, noting he had brought that upon himself.

Alongside the suspended ban, Osborne was ordered to make a £3,000 donation to a racing charity, provide written apologies to Person A and Person B, and complete anti-sexual-harassment and anti-misogyny training. In a statement, he said he completely accepted the judgement and repeated what he called a heartfelt and genuine apology for his actions.

The detail everyone walked past

Most of the coverage has reported the photograph, the apology and the penalty, and then moved on. Very little of it has paused on the thing that should stop us in our tracks. The photograph was never the end point. It was being taken for somewhere. There was a group. It had a name. And by Osborne's own admission, this was not the first photograph of its kind.

So we want to ask the questions the ruling did not.

Who else was in "Great Bums"? A WhatsApp group is not a private thought. It is, by definition, a room with other people in it. Were they licensed participants in the sport? Were they at the same meetings, in the same parade rings, standing beside the same women? And what were they expecting to receive when their phones buzzed? The group has reportedly been disbanded, but disbanding a group is not the same as accounting for who was in it.

How many photographs had already been shared there before this one was caught? Person A was photographed without ever knowing. The only reason this came to light is that, on this occasion, she noticed. The panel heard no further examples, but an absence of examples in a disciplinary file is not evidence that there were none. How many women never noticed?

And there is the matter of power. The panel was told that Osborne trains 80 horses and employs 30 staff, and that losing his licence outright would likely have closed the yard and ended the business. That scale is precisely the point. A man responsible for the livelihoods of 30 people, some of them young women, is not a private individual having a private lapse. He sets the tone of a workplace. What does it mean for the women who work in a yard when this is the conduct of the person at the top, and when the consequence is a ban that does not actually stop him training?

And why has the group itself faced no scrutiny? One man was sanctioned. The space that made his behaviour feel normal, social, even shareable, appears to have escaped any examination at all. A culture is not built by one person with a phone. It is built by the audience that makes the photograph worth taking.

Why we speak about this

It would be easy, and tempting, to file this under "isolated incident, dealt with, case closed." That is exactly why it matters that we do not.

Equitas exists to champion women in the equine world, and championing women means more than celebrating winners. It means refusing to look away when the sport we love treats a woman as something to be captured and passed around for entertainment. The parade ring belongs to her as much as to anyone. The grandstand belongs to her. So does the right to stand in either without being someone else's content.

When this kind of behaviour is named and challenged, it loses the one thing it depends on, which is silence. Every woman who reads this and recognises the feeling, the second glance, the phone held a little too long, the prickle of being watched, deserves to know she is not imagining it and she is not alone. And every group like "Great Bums," wherever it still exists, deserves to know that the women are watching back now.

The penalty in this case has been handed down. The harder questions remain open. We intend to keep asking them.

In a related piece coming soon, Equitas will look at what some voices within the industry made of this case, including one contributor who said he would "not let his own children near a racing yard". Read it here.