It is rocking the European racing world: A photograph of Ireland’s second leading jumps trainer, a man who has enjoyed inordinate success, sat astride a horse that had just dropped dead on his gallop, seemingly smiling for the camera.
I have worked with horses that have been put down, one minute fine, the next waiting for the vet to put them out of their misery. They know something is wrong, probably not what is wrong.
I have never been around one that just dropped dead of a heart attack.
A couple of summers ago, when I was working for a trainer in Kentucky, I was on the apron at Keeneland talking with the trainer watching the horses gallop when I saw one go down as it entered the straight. The horse had just come back to me. He had been with me at Payson Park training centre in Florida all winter, and I had grown fond of him.
He was a kind horse. He won his maiden at Keeneland in the spring. He had been training at Churchill recently and came back to me just the day before. His first gallop back in the barn I oversaw was his last.
Public perception
He broke his shoulder in a quiet gallop. The vet said he’d seen it before.
He should have been euthanized there and then, perhaps, but concerns with public perception had us load him on the ambulance and drive him to the appointed place. I held him. There was nothing really to say or do. I stroked his nose, his neck, lied to him.
The vet came. He was somber. No one likes it, no one wants it, a lovely day turned bad. Afterwards, I went back to the barn, finished morning stables, an empty stall that would be filled within 24 hours. It is part of the business, an unpleasant part, but still a part.
They are looked after, though, cared for daily, doctors at beck and call, grooms to care for them, their temperature taken daily, eating habits monitored, blood tests taken, their doctors checking on them.
Still, sometimes it goes wrong, though. It is a shock. A creature moments earlier, so strong and powerful, suddenly its life about to end, its future gone.
That is why the picture of Gordon Elliot is so uncomfortable to everyone, and no one more than those in the sport. Horse people don’t sit on dead horses. It was an image disgusting to outsiders and incomprehensible to insiders.
So I think Elliott surely should be banned for a period, and certainly probably shouldn’t be allowed to run horses in the UK before the start of next season. The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board would be remiss if they didn’t impose a similar ban.
But I want to say this: When he has served his punishment, I think people should forgive him.
And I will make two points that may serve as some explanation for such an asinine awful act.
Elliott had just had a horse drop dead on his gallop. That is always a shock and people can behave inappropriately after a shock. And then he took a call on his phone. There is a reason we are not supposed to talk on the phone when driving. It’s because it distracts our brain from what we are doing.
So, perhaps this really could have been a momentary lapse, for which, rightly, he still has to pay. But then, after he has paid, he should be forgiven, I think, because I believe Gordon Elliott has certainly learned a lesson he won’t ever forget.