[Crimson Dynamo]

Grand National-winning trainer Gordon Elliott apologises after shocking picture
emerged of him sitting on a dead horse - as Irishman insists it was taken 'some
time ago' and says he was caught off guard when receiving a phone call

• Gordon Elliott has apologised 'profoundly' after picture of him sitting on dead horse circulated on social media
• Elliott insisted he puts horse welfare first and was sorry for any offence caused
• Image appears to show Elliott sitting on a dead horse making a 'peace' gesture
• He is cooperating with the Irish investigation after the photo appeared online
• Elliott's stock rose sharply after the Grand National victories of Tiger Roll

Could lose his license


Here is the vile pic:

Spoiler:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/ra...ead-horse.html

[Niamh.]

Poor horse

[Cherie]

Grim

[user104658]

None of them give a **** about the horses, it's all PR bluster.

[Mystic Mock]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

None of them give a **** about the horses, it's all PR bluster.

It's still shocking to see an actual picture of the offence though tbf.

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

None of them give a **** about the horses, it's all PR bluster.

Anyone who wants to jump horses over impossible fences for money have no regard for the animal at all.

And this scumbag... well... sooner or later everyone shows who they really are.

[Kazanne]

What an absolute dickhead of a person, should have been the other way round.

[user104658]

They'll likely make an example of him because the sport's survival relies on a serviceable public image, but the only difference between him and 9 out of 10 other trainers is that he was dumb enough to get caught treating the animals like a product/chunk of meat. The mindset is industry-wide.

And for a depressing add-on: the attitude with greyhounds is, if anything, even worse. I've known a couple of greyhound owners/breeders and they don't even talk about them like living things.

[Cal.]

Twat

[rusticgal]

You would think anyone who works with Horses would be heartbroken rather than posing like that...shameful.

[GoldHeart]

Wow tasteless much !

[Vicky.]

I am struggling to get past someone thinking they would go and...sit on a corpse for a photo tbh.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

I am struggling to get past someone thinking they would go and...sit on a corpse for a photo tbh.

It honestly does look like he didn't even do that... he casually sat on it to make a call and then made a "peace" sign when he noticed his pal taking a picture. I'm not sure which is worse though. Deliberately posing for a shock picture, or just having such casual disinterest that you'd use it as a seat.

[joeysteele]

Sick, totally.

[Zizu]

I think it’s completely disgusting and disgraceful.

I’d imagine some of the owners of the horses in his ‘care’ maybe having a few concerns about their own horse .

I hope he gets a lifetime ban from keeping and working with animals but given he’s one of the biggest horse trainers in the whole country he’ll probably just get a warning.


I don’t see him being an animal lover at all .. when I find a dead critter or bird on our country walks I always move it out of sight ... only a few yards away.. I wouldn’t just leave it there to be constantly trod on or thrown around by a passing dawg ..

This guy presents as having zero ‘feelings’ towards the poor thing - sitting on a dead horse is bad enough but then posing for a photo with a smile / smirk on his face ...

In my humble opinion they should have covered or at least part covered it with a blanket or a coat .. if only out of respect .

Can’t imagine what the horse’s owner must be thinking today .



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Zizu]

He’s been temp suspended per enquiry


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Ammi]

...however ‘off guard’ he proclaims to have been taken, why would that in any way explain being photographed in a chilled and relaxed pose and showing the peace sign in the pose...taking and making calls on mobile phones etc...is something that’s become an every day thing for all of us and would be for him in his job as well, to be contactable and regularly contacted ...so the obvious ‘off guard’ would have been a ‘shock phone call’, surely...not one which someone would be smiling and chilled...as his profession is to train horses, then respect for them would be assumed as well...(...not that we can imagine anyone posing and smiling while sitting on a dead beast as if it were some kind of prop or something...)...


...it’s good to see that many news media didn’t show the actual pic out of respect or just showed the trainer posing but only the top half showing him and not the actual deceased horse...I also don’t see how ‘it was taken a while ago and an old pic’ would be relevant either in terms of how grim and disrespectful it all is...if this is him and how he is with a deceased horse, then would someone want to trust him to train their precious animal with any respect...

[Zizu]

Originally Posted by Ammi

...however ‘off guard’ he proclaims to have been taken, why would that in any way explain being photographed in a chilled and relaxed pose and showing the peace sign in the pose...taking and making calls on mobile phones etc...is something that’s become an every day thing for all of us and would be for him in his job as well, to be contactable and regularly contacted ...so the obvious ‘off guard’ would have been a ‘shock phone call’, surely...not one which someone would be smiling and chilled...as his profession is to train horses, then respect for them would be assumed as well...(...not that we can imagine anyone posing and smiling while sitting on a dead beast as if it were some kind of prop or something...)...


...it’s good to see that many news media didn’t show the actual pic out of respect or just showed the trainer posing but only the top half showing him and not the actual deceased horse...I also don’t see how ‘it was taken a while ago and an old pic’ would be relevant either in terms of how grim and disrespectful it all is...if this is him and how he is with a deceased horse, then would someone want to trust him to train their precious animal with any respect...

Exactly


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Amy Jade]

Should be stripped of his job and banned from keeping or working with animals. People's disregard for animals lives and general well-being makes me sick.

[Zizu]

Originally Posted by Amy Jade

Should be stripped of his job and banned from keeping or working with animals. People's disregard for animals lives and general well-being makes me sick.

Agreed


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

[Vicky.]

Originally Posted by Amy Jade

Should be stripped of his job and banned from keeping or working with animals. People's disregard for animals lives and general well-being makes me sick.

Honestly, this might be hugely controversial but I do think anyone who thinks horseracing is fine..doesnt give too much of a **** about animals. Yeah I know...'most are nice to them' 'only the bad ones abuse' blah blah. But...nah.

I kind of suspect a flood of these pictures coming out. As really, anyone who actually had any respect for the animals, would not be doing that job to start with. There will be worse than corpse pictures too. This is probably the tamest of it all.

This is a topic my opinion completely flipped on over the space of about a day. I did think...oh racehorses, well looked after by most, some bad trainers does not mean its all bad...etc. In my..ignorance..I did not know that usually multiple horses die on grand national day alone. Like..I couldn't stop thinking about it for ages as always thought it was all..well ok. But an event where multiple are killed each year yet still goes ahead..says to me neither the trainers, nor the fans actually care. They can talk the talk though and make the right noises of course

(I think what made the grand national thing worse too, was that I 'found out' on a shift at work, when the men in the bar were putting on their bets and that, but also putting a crapton of money onto the middle of the table. So I asked and wished I did not..that was a side bet, apparently, betting on how many horses died this year WAs then subjected to like..a bunch of men trying to explain why no, it wasnt horrible, its the circle of life and I just know nothing and blah blah )

[bots]

anything involving profit and animals has a good chance of being dodgy. We have animal welfare regulations of course, but if an opportunity exists, people will take advantage

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

Honestly, this might be hugely controversial but I do think anyone who thinks horseracing is fine..doesnt give too much of a **** about animals. Yeah I know...'most are nice to them' 'only the bad ones abuse' blah blah. But...nah.

Yeah like I said... The whole industry (both horses and dog racing) treats the animals as commodities... They're treated with utmost care while they're valuable and then discarded like a broken piece of machinery when they're not. In the long thing that Cherie quoted, they have someone saying that the industry is based on love and respect of the animals... Well no... It just isn't. The industry requires the illusion of love and respect for the animals in order to continue. That's why they're horrified at this guy... He's eroded that illusion and it threatens their industry.

I'm not against the concept of "working animals" as a whole - police/search dogs, working farm horses, etc. but any animal that's bred and kept primarily to be put to work for human entertainment is ethically questionable.

I think what made the grand national thing worse too, was that I 'found out' on a shift at work, when the men in the bar were putting on their bets and that, but also putting a crapton of money onto the middle of the table. So I asked and wished I did not..that was a side bet, apparently, betting on how many horses died this year WAs then subjected to like..a bunch of men trying to explain why no, it wasnt horrible, its the circle of life and I just know nothing and blah blah )

You'd be amazed (or horrified) at how many people I had every single year asking for the odds on exactly this, and then being incredulous ("that's ridiculous, I thought you could bet on anything!") when told that major bookies don't offer odds on horses dying, for obvious reasons. But yeah, plenty of person-to-person side wagers going on between regular customers on GN morning.

Yet more reasons to be thankful that I got far away from the gambling industry. Yuck.

[Niamh.]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

Yeah like I said... The whole industry (both horses and dog racing) treats the animals as commodities... They're treated with utmost care while they're valuable and then discarded like a broken piece of machinery when they're not. In the long thing that Cherie quoted, they have someone saying that the industry is based on love and respect of the animals... Well no... It just isn't. The industry requires the illusion of love and respect for the animals in order to continue. That's why they're horrified at this guy... He's eroded that illusion and it threatens their industry.

I'm not against the concept of "working animals" as a whole - police/search dogs, working farm horses, etc. but any animal that's bred and kept primarily to be put to work for human entertainment is ethically questionable.



You'd be amazed (or horrified) at how many people I had every single year asking for the odds on exactly this, and then being incredulous ("that's ridiculous, I thought you could bet on anything!") when told that major bookies don't offer odds on horses dying, for obvious reasons. But yeah, plenty of person-to-person side wagers going on between regular customers on GN morning.

Yet more reasons to be thankful that I got far away from the gambling industry. Yuck.

You'd want to be a ****ing moron to believe that's true tbf

[Zizu]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

You'd want to be a ****ing moron to believe that's true tbf

Like I said earlier.. Sky News interviewed a racing pundit yesterday and he said that we shouldn’t assume that he didn’t love or care for the animals under his care !!

Presumably the pundit is known to the guy or knows how much clout he carries in racing ..


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro