WHAT I’VE DONE IS INDEFENSIBLE
Top horse trainer apologises as his racing colleagues are queueing up to decry photo which appeared on social media
GORDON Elliott’s decision to pose for a photograph sitting on a dead horse was described by racing legend Ruby Walsh as ‘indefensible’ yesterday.
The horse racing trainer, 42, was at the eye of a thickening storm yesterday over the photo which circulated online.
Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary – who has dozens of horses at Mr Elliott’s yard, including the double Grand National-winning Tiger Roll – issued a statement confirming his loyalty to the Meath trainer.
But the vast majority of big names in the racing world reacted with disgust to the image which has led to Elliott being banned from running horses in Britain, while Irish racing authorities investigate the shocking picture.
Leading the charge was former champion jockey Walsh.
The 41-year-old Kildare native and retired rider said of the photo that sent shockwaves through the industry: ‘A picture paints a
‘I felt embarrassed for my sport’
thousand words, but I think that picture only painted one, and that is indefensible.’
Elliott himself admitted yesterday he had let down the racing industry. Speaking to the Racing Post, he said: ‘It is indefensible. Whether alive or dead, the horse was entitled to dignity.’
He went on to describe his actions as ‘a moment of madness that I am going to have to spend the rest of my life paying for and that my staff are suffering for’.
The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board is investigating the picture, which was taken in 2019. Acknowledging the repercussions his yard faces, Elliott added: ‘I will be punished, I fully understand that. But it absolutely breaks my heart to read and hear people say that I have no respect for my horses. That couldn’t be further from the truth. My whole life has revolved around horses since I was a child... I came from nothing and built a dream.’
Earlier yesterday, Walsh was asked by his co-host Marie Crowe on RTÉ 2fm’s Game On as to whether Elliott’s bizarre photo – in which he was smiling and giving a thumbs-up atop a dead horse – was a ‘normal reaction’ in the racing industry to the death of a horse. He replied: ‘No, it’s not, and it most certainly shouldn’t be.
‘When I looked at it, I felt angry. I felt embarrassed for my sport, and I felt very sad myself.’
He said it was embarrassing to think that everyone in the industry could be ‘tarred with the same brush’. ‘Because that is not the way, in any of the establishments I have worked in, that things are done,’ he added.
Asked if Elliott’s apology was enough, he said that more should have been said about the horse itself. ‘Detail is key to everything,’ he said. ‘Every horse has a name, and we don’t know what horse it was. I did read it had died from a heart attack, which is quite sad but it happens, but it is an appalling picture and it is not defendable. Indefensible, actually.’
As for the IHRB inquiry, he said he did not know what would happen to the horses in training with Elliott, with the Cheltenham Festival getting under way in less than two weeks, if he was found to have ‘acted in a manner prejudicial to the good image of Irish racing’.
He added: ‘I think that’s fairly easy to say, yes, he has.’
With Tiger Roll being readied for
an attempt at a record-equalling third Aintree Grand National win in April, whatever punishment is meted out could also put the kibosh on the fairytale run.
Other big names in the sport hit out at the Elliott photo yesterday. Racing pundit and former jockey Tracy Piggott said that she was ‘completely gobsmacked’ by the image.
Grand National-winning ex-jockey Mick Fitzgerald spoke of his shock and sadness after discovering that the image of Elliott sitting atop a dead horse was genuine. And horse-racing journalist and broadcaster Lydia Hislop said she thought the photo was appalling.
The financial implications for Elliott’s yard were immediate yesterday, as bookmaker Betfair dropped him as an ambassador, saying his actions were not consistent with its ‘values’. However, Gigginstown House Stud owner O’Leary confirmed his team would be going nowhere, opting to accept an apology for a ‘grievous but momentary lapse of judgment from Gordon’. RTÉ’s Liveline programme yesterday lit up with people condemning the image. Former RTÉ racing presenter Ms Piggott said she was ‘deeply shocked’ by the picture. She told listeners: ‘I’m very sad and disappointed, and I’m so shocked by the image that we saw. I think what really hit home for me yesterday was the amount of calls I got from Australia, from Hong Kong, from Santa Anita racetrack in the United States, and several from England, asking: “What on earth is happening in Irish racing?”’
She added: ‘I am just deeply shocked. It has brought the most horrendous type of publicity into this business.’
The image was also condemned by Horse Racing Ireland, which called it ‘disturbing’.
‘This image does not reflect the care, attention and respect that racehorses receive, and does a disservice to the thousands of people who look after their horses on a daily basis.,’ HRI said.
Airline boss Mr O’Leary said he would stand by Elliott following this controversy. In a statement, he described the photo as ‘unacceptable’, but said he did accept the trainer’s ‘sincere, profound and unreserved apology’. Asked what the future held for Elliott, Ruby Walsh said he did not know, but that if there was a way back for the trainer, it was going to be ‘a very, very long road’.
ON Sunday evening, Gordon Elliott was braced for the tsunami coming to his Cullentra House Stables; yesterday it rolled over him in wave after wave of revulsion. He was swamped. From Attheraces, where Mick Fitzgerald was almost in tears, to Racing TV, from Liveline to 2FM’s Game On, Elliott’s reputation was pummelled to a pulp.
Apart from Michael O’Leary’s Gigginstown House Stud operation, which accepted Elliott’s apology, no one in the racing game cut him an ounce of slack as the implications of a snapshot in time returned to haunt the three-time trainer of the Grand National winner.
‘Indefensible,’ said a sombre Ruby Walsh of the sickening image of Elliott sitting on a dead horse, under which read the caption, ‘new work rider this morning’.
‘It showed a total lack of respect to horses,’ said Tracy Piggott on Liveline, where broadcaster Lydia Hislop insisted ‘there must be punishment, there has to be consequences’ while also questioning the culture of the Elliott stables.
‘Unacceptable,’ slated Matt Chapman from Plumpton racecourse.
The racing authorities also rowed in to criticise the Meath handler.
While the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) were guarded, mindful of the investigation they were pursuing, Horse Racing Ireland were clearly dismayed.
‘This image does not reflect the care, attention and respect that race horses receive, and does a disservice to the thousands of people who look after their horses on a daily basis,’ they said.
Curiously, there was not a peep from the Irish Racehorse Trainers’ Association, of which Elliott is a committee member.
Across the Irish Sea, the defenders of the horse, and of the horse racing industry, were enraged. If Elliott suspected he was regarded as an outlier in Britain, given his background, he knows where he stands now as the blows rained in.
The British Horseracing Authority didn’t hold back. ‘The BHA is appalled by the image that appeared this weekend,’ they said, insisting that everyone who works in the ‘racing industry’ had been ‘deeply undermined by this behaviour.’
This is the same BHA who have been silent over recent BBC Panorama claims that Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, a leading breeder and owner in British racing, is allegedly holding his daughter Kalifa hostage.
Cheveley Park Stud, who own several horses trained by Elliott including the unbeaten Envoi Allen, said they were ‘truly horrified’ by the photo but will not comment further until the IHRB investigation is over. The Jockey Club, which owns Cheltenham and Aintree racecourses, said: ‘The anger and upset across racing says it all.’
The National Trainers Federation, which represents trainers in Britain revealed their members had expressed ‘outrage and disgust’.
While the charity World Horse Welfare said: ‘This photo looks abhorrent.’ The first commercial partner to cut ties were Betfair who did so to ‘immediate effect’.
Elliott is no fool and accepts he invited the vilification through a moment of appalling carelessness and massive misjudgement.
At every corner, he was on the back foot, including RTÉ radio, where Walsh sounded spooked. ‘When I looked at it (the photo), I felt angry, embarrassed for my sport,’ he said.
‘I’ve spent my whole life with horses and there is a duty of care to the animal as much as when it’s dead as when it’s alive. That’s the way I was taught to conduct myself. To think that we all be tarred with the same brush; that is not the way things are done.
‘As a licensed trainer you are representing the horseracing industry and onus is on you to act in an image that’s good for racing. This has huge ramifications for the sport.’
Walsh retold how as a 12-year-old he was riding a pony when it slipped on a bridge and broke its hind leg. He had to hold the stricken animal for an age while his father Ted went back home to contact the vet.
Can Elliott find a way back? ‘I don’t know,’ said Walsh. ‘We live in a democracy. Everyone makes errors. I think it will be a very very long road,’ he said.