Elliott back on the winning trail after his six-month ban

GORDON Elliott’s licence to train was restored this week after a six-month ban. He had a winner on Wednesday with his fourth runner after the resumption.

The horses that remained in the yard were trained by Denise Foster in the interim and her strike rate was a fairly ordinary 11 per cent, ie 30 winners from 275 runners. Elliott’s in the last few years averaged 15 per cent.

Chances are that some of his horses that ran in the summer are well handicapped. Many punters will think the sentence for Elliott, pictured, was lenient. Their dilemma in the months ahead will be whether to take a kind of moral high ground and ignore his runners, or put principles aside and bet when the odds looks like good value.

Did you know we are in the midst of the first ever National Racehorse Week? More than 100 stables up and down the country have opened their doors so that the public – whether racing fans or not – can see the conditions in which equine athletes live and train, and get an idea of the love, care and attention that goes into looking after racehorses. Some yards have had to put up the “house full” signs but if you go to https://nationalracehorseweek.uk/ and type in your postcode you may still find places available in relatively local yards.

The retirement of Altior has been anticipated repeatedly for six months, and the decision was made earlier this week. In hindsight, the November 2019 race at Ascot against Cyrname over two miles and five furlongs got to the bottom of both horses. It ended Altior’s winning streak of 19. His three runs since were good but he wasn’t quite the same horse and had patently lost a bit of speed. He’s 11 now, and has done enough.

Cyrname’s form since the Ascot race is F1PP, but he’s still only nine and Paul Nicholls has brought other horses back from slumps in their form.

There’s a quality card at Newbury tomorrow, with three Group races. The fact that the Ayr Gold Cup had 163 entries demonstrates how keenly contested it is. They, of course, have the Silver Cup that day and a Bronze Cup the day before. Newmarket also race tomorrow, and there the inventors of consolation and spin-off races have come up with an Amateurs’ Cambridgeshire as the last event on the card. Mercurius Power is the suggestion here.