Irish Trainer Gordon Elliott with PR Disaster of the Year - Horse Racing Forum - PaceAdvantage.Com

cutchemist42 · 03-01-2021, 10:54 AM

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dai...D-Betfair.html

The sport is already hanging on, do these people not realize they have zero room for boneheaded moves like this in this society?

PhantomOnTour · 03-01-2021, 11:40 AM

Disgusting

dilanesp · 03-01-2021, 12:08 PM

What an imbecile.

castaway01 · 03-01-2021, 02:47 PM

Let's have a horse sit on him next and see how that turns out.

JustRalph · 03-01-2021, 03:32 PM

Imbecile

snappit · 03-01-2021, 04:40 PM

This is absolutely indefensible. It is huge news over here.

For those of you who aren't up too much on British and Irish racing Elliott is one of the very top trainers over here. The timing could not be worse as he has several good horses entered at the UK's biggest horse racing meeting, the Cheltenham Festival, in two weeks time as well as Tiger Roll going for a record equaling third victory in The Grand National in April.

A lengthy ban has to be the answer although I'm not convinced the Irish Racing Authorities will take the stern action needed.

PaceAdvantage · 03-01-2021, 05:03 PM

Once again, the collective wisdom of the INTERWEBS blows something way out of proportion.

So...let me see if I have this straight in my head.

We can whip these creatures while they are alive to make them run straighter/faster....we can pump them full of meds while they are alive....we can tap their joints...do anything and everything to make them race through pain....

But GOD FORBID someone finds a picture of a trainer sitting on an ALREADY DEAD horse....and people lose their minds?

What have I missed? Must be something important.

dilanesp · 03-01-2021, 05:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage

Once again, the collective wisdom of the INTERWEBS blows something way out of proportion.

So...let me see if I have this straight in my head.

We can whip these creatures while they are alive to make them run straighter/faster....we can pump them full of meds while they are alive....we can tap their joints...do anything and everything to make them race through pain....

But GOD FORBID someone finds a picture of a trainer sitting on an ALREADY DEAD horse....and people lose their minds?

What have I missed? Must be something important.

I very much agree with you that in substance, this isn't that big a deal. It's like desecrating any corpse- the corpse doesn't mind.

But you don't want a photo of this going around. Because people react a certain way to this kind of thing. People are very emotional about corpses, and that includes horse corpses.

PaceAdvantage · 03-01-2021, 05:38 PM

Yes, the photo was in poor taste.

Give him a slap on the wrist like Bob Baffert gets for ****ing around with living, breathing horses, and move on with your lives.

Rohirrim · 03-02-2021, 12:30 AM

He's been suspended pending the completion of an investigation.

snappit · 03-02-2021, 04:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

He's been suspended pending the completion of an investigation.

Only in Britain. He is still allowed to have runners in Ireland and had four winners yesterday.

snappit · 03-02-2021, 04:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage

Once again, the collective wisdom of the INTERWEBS blows something way out of proportion.

So...let me see if I have this straight in my head.

We can whip these creatures while they are alive to make them run straighter/faster....we can pump them full of meds while they are alive....we can tap their joints...do anything and everything to make them race through pain....

But GOD FORBID someone finds a picture of a trainer sitting on an ALREADY DEAD horse....and people lose their minds?

What have I missed? Must be something important.

This is about trust and respect for the horses and he has shown neither. His bizarre apology/ statement only makes things worse. Racing is coming under consistent attack and one of the main attacks is that it is all about money and horses are just disposable commodities, this photo unfortunately confirms that in some cases that is true.

This can't be brushed off as some small trainer on the periphery of racing who doesn't care and is not representative of what happens in racing. He is one of the biggest names in the business and trains the most popular horse in the British Isles, the one (and probably only) horse who is known by people outside the racing game.

snappit · 03-02-2021, 05:03 AM

Sadly, video has now emerged of jockey Rob James, who has ridden winners for Elliott, laughing and jumping on a dead horse.

v j stauffer · 03-02-2021, 08:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PaceAdvantage

Once again, the collective wisdom of the INTERWEBS blows something way out of proportion.

So...let me see if I have this straight in my head.

We can whip these creatures while they are alive to make them run straighter/faster....we can pump them full of meds while they are alive....we can tap their joints...do anything and everything to make them race through pain....

But GOD FORBID someone finds a picture of a trainer sitting on an ALREADY DEAD horse....and people lose their minds?

What have I missed? Must be something important.

I think what you've missed is understanding how people are going to react to this.

I'm not knocking how it makes you feel. But think about all the sadness and comments whenever a horse breaks down.

People love all animals in general and freak out when they see them having suffered or abused. Especially dogs and horses. You've been around long enough to know this.

As a safety Steward in Ca I was first on the scene for many catastrophic injuries. It never got easier to see.

You know very well that life is perception. Especially in the instant news cycle of 2021.

I'm quite sure this trainer is learning the hard way that what he did was Gothically stupid. I'm sure he'll lose business over it. What the hell was this guy thinking?

One of the hallmarks of making it big in the training world is to train for big time breeding operations. Many of those people love their horses as though they are children. This incident cannot possibly sit well with that crowd.

classhandicapper · 03-02-2021, 09:19 AM

What I'd like to know is why he did it and what the hell was he thinking?

Even if I was totally insensitive about such matters, I still couldn't come up with a logical reason to sit on a dead animal and clown around. Maybe it would make sense if he was 10 years old?