Like greyhound racing. Look at how many greyhounds are in dog shelters looking for a second chance. Almost discarded once they can no longer cut it on the track.
Race horses are just a commodity in the horse racing world. Not a great deal of sentiment is attached to them and most have very short lives if they have any sort of imperfection. It is no surprise that there is little respect for them when they die. No one would kick up a fuss if this was a pig in a slaughterhouse so why attach a false sense of bereavement to a race horse. Personally I couldn’t give a **** if he had skinned it and made a jacket out of it live on Discovery.
In this particular scenario, the thing that will hurt Gordon Elliott the most are the loss of the cream of his horses. The sad indictment of that is the hurt that causes the staff who dote on those horses like they were their children, in the same way anyone would look after and spoil their dog. This IS an isolated incident which has been met, rightly, by condemnation. Lets be right here, racehorses aren't left in a field without shelter, water or hay... they live in fully inclusive 4/5 star accommodation. Its atrocious obviously that one or two slip through the net having been gifted to people who promised to look after them in a fit and proper way once their racing days are over..
I'm confident that most racehorse trainers care for the animals. But this is about one individual, Gordon Elliott and the world has photographic evidence of how he treats horses. It's not about the sport in general. It's just one man and he will pay for what he's done.
Bloody coming on here with well thought through posts considering both sides of the story! Unnecessary You’re the cruel one!
One of the problems is that at first (as far as I understand) he denied that the picture was real. He claimed that the image had been manipulated to create a false impression that it was him. Only when other evidence emerged did he concede that the picture was, in fact, genuine. That doesn't, of course, excuse his original behaviour though trying to excuse your way out of a bad situation is never a good solution
To be honest I’ve always been more concerned about whether the sport itself is cruel, albeit as a much less informed observer As Dutch said the perceived wisdom seems to be that to race in the first place horses need to feel threatened (by playing on the natural reaction to not wanting something on your back) Then when you add use of crops etc it just feels troublesome to me. But I’m not well informed enough to be picketing Beverley at the moment. I’ve always thought jump racing seemed ‘crueler’ than flat racing. That’s was since I spent some time as a youth camping on a racecourse in Worcester and stood next to the jumps and could see for myself how big they were and how strong they were (horses look like they brush through them but they were like brick walls to me!) On the flip side I don’t have much of an emotional attachment to horses. Although I choose not to eat meat or animal products, partially due to the cruelty in some parts of the industry, I can’t see why anyone who was happy to eat a cow wouldn’t be happy to eat a horse (as long as they liked the taste of course) ...so I don’t quite know what I think! (Apart from that I definitely think the Grand National is cruel, purely based on the number of horses that die during it)
I was agnostic about horse racing until I got given corporate tickets to a box at the Grand National a few years back. Had a nice day out with food and company, had fun putting a few quid on here and there in the run up races, and then came the big race itself. We were in the big stand that overlooks where the horses come in and out of the track, and the state of the horses afterwards was really upsetting to see. Shaking, covered in sweat, having buckets of water slung over them to cool them down, some collapsing and one died. The roar of the crowd in the final stage of the race was fantastic as a sports fan, but I've no idea what the horses make of it. All in all it put me right off and I've never watched it since or even done the works sweepstake.
Tough business to be in. I've known a few people over the years who've kept horses to make a living from and as kind and caring as they are they are very unsentimental when the animals become 'redundant'.
I live horse racing and always have as do the rest of my family parents grandparents etc. when you see the big races and they’re magnificent beasts, majestic etc but even they die sometimes in the Jump races. But years ago when I was on the dole and spent my afternoons in the bookies and you’re seeing a seller at Huntingdon or Bangor. and the poor horses are nags it's bloody cruel to see the poor things been clogged round in bottomless mud trying to jump fences they aren’t good enough to jump. It did put me off the sport Then I got a tip in the last at cart mel and it was all good Life’s cruel
Elliott has been banned for 12 months with 6 months deferred. ~As Jamie Osborne said on Sky, his punishment has probably already been received.