Palm Grove: Serendipity Reiners owner Greg Peters, 63, sentenced for sexual touching

A high-profile trainer’s reputation is in “tatters” and he was forced to leave the sport he loved “ashamed and humiliated” after sexually touching two women during horse riding lessons.

Gregory Richard Jam Peters, 63, of Palm Grove, was sentenced for sexually touching two women during horse riding lessons. Picture: Facebook

A former international champion of horse reining has left the sport humiliated after pleading guilty to taking “liberties” with two women who he groped on the breast during riding lessons.

Gregory Richard Jam Peters, of Palm Grove, ran Serendipity Horse Reining with his wife Carolyn but put his wandering hands down to more “stupidity” after pleading guilty to two counts of sexually touching middle-aged women he was instructing.

A further five counts of sexually touching the same two victims were taken into account when he was sentenced at Wyong Local Court on Wednesday, April 5.

The 63-year-old was the former president of Southern Cross Reining Horse Association and used to run reining “clinics” from his Palm Grove property to instruct in the ranch-style sport, which is billed as keeping alive the “traditions and horsemanship skills of the Old West”.

An agreed set of facts states Peters was the instructor for two experienced horse riding women, aged in their 40s and 50s, who enrolled for lessons in the relatively new discipline of reining.

Gregory Peters, 63, of Palm Grove, leaving Wyong Local Court after being sentenced for sexual touching. Picture: NewsLocal

The facts state between August 7 and October 22, 2021, Peters sexually touched the two women on seven separate occasions during riding lessons in which he “grabbed a handful” of their breasts, squeezed one of their nipples and put his hand in the crease of the other’s inner thigh.

“I need your shoulders back, boobs out,” Peters told one of the women as he put his hand on her lower back and his other on her breast.

Greg Peters and the horse How Wizz That in the Queensland Reining Horse Championships in 2007. Photo: Vicki Wood

“I also want you to stand up in the stirrups and as you come down to sit in the saddle, I want your pussy right up the front of the saddle so that you get in the rhythm and roll it over the high part of the saddle as you ride. You need not sit back on your pockets.”

After another incident the victim told him “could you please not touch me” to which Peters replied “sorry baby” and “oh, I thought [your husband] must have been ravaging your boobs”.

The two women ended their riding lessons with Peters after discovering they each had similar experiences with him and sent him identical text messages citing his “inappropriate” touching.

The agreed facts state Peters then tried to call them and sent them text messages apologising for “any hurt or pain” he caused having “overstepped the friendship line”.

Peters also said in text messages that he had embarrassed and devastated his wife Carolyn, and that he was a “stupid man”.

“I have stopped doing lessons forever as I am so ashamed of what I have done to you,” he wrote.

Peters’ barrister told the court his client had closed the riding business, sought counselling and “fallen heavily as a result” of his offending.

“His reputation is in tatters, he’s suffered the shame, humiliation and embarrassment ... and will have to live with that for the rest of his life,” he said.

Magistrate Stephen Olischlager said while the touching was over the victims’ clothes it was “very sexual in nature” and smacked of a “sense of entitlement”.

“You took the liberties that should never be taken with another person without their consent,” he told Peters.

He convicted Peters and sentenced him to an intensive corrections order for 10 months with 70 hours of community service work.