Elliott will pay dearly for fall from grace but racing will just shrug and jog on

IT is impossible to know if the emergence on Tuesday of a video showing amateur jockey Rob James jumping onto the back of a dead horse is a good thing or a bad thing for Gordon Elliott. Two wrongs have never made a right, but in different circumstances the revelation of what James did four years ago might have taken some of the heat out of the fire-storm the Meath trainer has been roasting in since a photograph of him sitting astride a dead horse came into public view last Saturday. As it is, however, the video of James coming on the heels of what Elliott did, a couple of years ago, has understandably only further fanned the flames of disgust and anger being directed at Elliott in particular and the horse racing industry in general.

Where to start? Let’s stick with Elliott, where there are a few different strands to unravel. Park, for a moment, the justifiable horror that people have felt since seeing the picture of the now 43-year-old trainer sitting on the dead horse, Morgan, that – we are told – died of a heart attack on the training gallops a very short time before the photo was taken.

And leave aside the valid but that’s-for-another-day argument about a horse dying in such a way. What you are left with is a terrible error of judgement by a man who absolutely should know better, and who will, no doubt, have to pay a very punitive price, be that a large monetary fine, a lengthy suspension of his training licence, the removal of horses from his yard by outraged owners, or the public humiliation and personal shame that will follow him for ever more. The smart money is on all four coming to pass.

The Irish Horse Racing Board (IHRB) is investigating the matter and will, in due course, determine if and how Elliott must be sanctioned. The Meath trainer will almost certainly have to answer a charge of bringing the sport into disrepute, but whether or not he has an animal cruelty charge to answer is another matter. Given that Morgan was already dead when Elliott was snapped taking on a phone call while sitting on the animal, the horse – to state the obvious – didn’t suffer from his trainer’s act of stupidity. What Elliott did, however, was somewhat bizarre, unthinkingly insensitive, downright disrespectful to the horse (even in death) and his owners, and – one would think – totally out of character for a person who has spent his adult life working with, caring for and respecting these magnificent creatures.

Here’s the thing though: perhaps what this one image speaks loudest to is not one man’s momentary lapse of judgement, but instead it shines a light – and an uncomfortable one at that – on the fact that race horses are exactly what we know them to be: commodities.

Race horses are commodities, bought and sold and run for people’s enjoyment, and in most cases, for profit. Animal welfare is an emotive subject, and there is no doubting some people’s genuine upset these last few days at how Morgan was treated by Elliott that day, but a lot of crocodile tears have been shed too.

It must be accepted that Elliott treats his live horses as well as any trainer in the land, but the stark reality is that what Elliott sat on that morning at his county Meath gallops was not an eight-time winner across 43 races, but a lump of horse-flesh that had ceased to be of any value to Elliott, his own Michael O’Leary of Gigginstown House Stud or anyone else associated with the then seven-year-old gelding.

What do we think happens when a horse comes down at a fence in Listowel or Punchestown or Cheltenham and the screens go up around it? First on the scene is a veterinary surgeon who does a quick examination. If the prognosis is bad then, after a rueful shake of the vet’s head, next on the scene is the fella with the loaded shotgun. Okay, they use an injection these days to euthanise a horse in such circumstances, but the end result is the same.

Now, you can argue until the cows come home that such ‘closure’ is best for a suffering animal, but the bottom, unpalatable line is this: a race horse that cannot run, or a steeplechaser that cannot jump, isn’t really much use to anyone, is it?

Very, very few horses get the dignity in death that many people feel they should. Some – the lucky ones – get to live out their retirement from the circuit in a grassy paddock, rolling around in the afternoon sun, being fed sugar lumps. Many others go the way of Morgan: capsized on some gallop or in some yard, wrenched unceremoniously on to a flat-bed truck and taken to the bone-yard for processing. Whatever the arrangement, either the animal’s owner gets a few quid from the knacker’s yard, or the owner has to pay to get the carcass removed, but even in death there is one final transaction to be made, one last bit of profit to be squeezed out of the beast.

People are angry and disgusted at what Gordon Elliott did, and at what Rob James did, and while the immediate future for both men remains uncertain and loaded with consequence, we also know this: Elliott will be back training horses and saddling winners long before the Covid-19 pandemic is over and crowds are allowed back into racecourses.

Why? Because that’s the game. O’Leary and Gigginstown have rightly condemned Elliott’s actions but the Ryanair chief has decided to keep their horses with Elliott. O’Leary – not a man immune to ruffling feathers in the aviation and horse racing business – said on Monday his trainer of choice had a “grievous but momentary lapse of judgement” but added that “we all make mistakes”, that Gigginstown accept Elliott’s apology and the operation would “continue to support [Elliott] and his team at Cullentra.”

Cheveley Park Stud, meanwhile, has removed all eight horses they had in training with Elliott, including Envoi Allen, who has back-to-back Cheltenham Festival wins in the Champion Bumper and the Ballymore Novices’ Hurdle in his unbeaten career.

Cheveley Park director Richard Thompson told Sky Sports Racing on Tuesday that they “had to take a decision...to disassociate ourselves with Gordon at this time and do the right thing by the stud and by the industry.”

One wonders given that Cheltenham is just a fortnight away, how much Cheveley Park is doing right by the industry and how much it is for themselves? In fairness, no owner of a horse under Elliott’s care should be forced to miss out on a Cheltenham entry because of that trainer’s gross stupidity a couple of years ago, but there has been some level of hypocrisy in the commentary around all sorry mess.

Almost every person at a race meeting is there to earn money, be they horse owners or trainers, jockeys, grooms, and facility and catering staff, or there to win money, i.e., the punter and bookmaker. The sport is, in every sense, an industry. Yes, every horse is cared for and loved by someone, but don’t kid yourself that the winners going home in the horse-box that night aren’t a little bit more loved than the losers.

There will be no punters in Prestbury Park on March 16, and it is very likely that there will be no Gordon Elliott there either. But the horses under this care last week will all most likely make the trip as planned. And winners will send trilbies into the air and losers will send spent dockets to the floor and the image of a stricken horse and a hefty man sitting on top of him will be the furthest thing from everyone’s mind.

And in March 2022 the crowds will be back on the Cotswolds and Gordon Elliott will almost certainly be there too. And the Meath man will have winners there and they and he will be feted. And the Meath man will saddle losers, and losing punters will wish all sorts of bad things on those losing horses.

And people will stand at the bars in Cheltenham and across Ireland for four days and whenever someone mentions ‘Morgan’ the only response will be: ‘I will, thanks, with a splash of Coke in it’.