Elliott returns but will ‘live with mistake for rest of my life’
GORDON ELLIOTT says he still lies awake at night thinking about the photograph that sidelined him for six months.
Elliott was handed a 12 month ban, half of which was suspended – as well as a €15,000 fine – after a photograph emerged of him sitting on a dead horse.
And while the Meath trainer contemplates a return to action at Punchestown today with the end of his suspension he admits that photograph still plays on his mind.
Speaking to Racing TV, he said: “When I opened the photograph I knew it wasn’t good. I got an awful shock when I’d seen it on the Saturday evening myself. It’s something I never want to experience again.
“It’s something that I lie in bed every night thinking about and it’s something that
I’m going to have to live with for the rest of my life.
“For a man in my position it shouldn’t have happened and it was a terrible mistake. But I am not the monster some people are making me out to be.”
Elliott was asked if he’d change anything after the photograph was released, and said: “In hindsight you’ll always do things different but I’ll never forget seeing the photograph. I was at Fairyhouse and I had a horse about to run in the last race in the bumper and I seen it and I got an awful shock. I contacted our governing bodies, the IHRB, I contacted Horse Racing Ireland and said it was me.
“They dealt with it straight away, I had a meeting with them the following day. I was very straight up with it the whole way but something I would never like to have to do again, to be honest.”
Elliott said that the knock on effect for the yard devastated him, adding: “Watching them (top horses) leave the yard was very, very tough. It wasn’t just tough on me, it was tough for the staff in the yard.
“These lads and lassies look after these horses, they put their whole lives into them and they adore these horses and for a mistake I made they lost them as well.
“I’ve suffered for doing that and I’m going to suffer for the next three or four years for doing something very silly.”
Denise Foster (inset) took temporary control of Elliott’s Cullentra base, enjoying a Grade One winner at the Cheltenham Festival with Mares’ Hurdle victor Black Tears while also saddling dual Grand National hero Tiger Roll as he bounced back to winning form with a wide-margin success in the cross country.
Elliott is now free to resume business at his yard and has two declared runners at Punchestown today – but it is not known if the trainer will be in attendance.
Oh Purple Reign, a winner at Gowran for Foster on September 1, could be Elliott’s first runner back in the Donate To The Coast To The Curragh Cycle In Honour Of Pat Smullen Handicap, while Alice Kitty has been entered in the Irish Stallion Farms EBF Fillies Handicap.