Ted Walsh: Gordon Elliott should take a break from horse racing after 'heartbreaking' ordeal

Trainer Gordon Elliott. Picture: Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Ted Walsh believes Gordon Elliott should consider taking a break from horse racing to "get his life back in order and get himself back in order".

Whether he loses his training licence or not after being photographed sitting on a dead horse will feel like a "minor detail", according to Walsh, after the losses he has had from his yard this week, including stable star Envoi Allen.

The trainer and RTÉ pundit says Elliott is already paying for his "crazy act of disrespect for a horse" and will continue to do so for a long time.

"The licence is only a minor detail after what happened to him in the last few days," he told Today with Claire Byrne on RTÉ Radio 1.

"To be in Gordon Elliott’s yard yesterday watching Envoi Allen and eight of the best horses you have loaded into a box (will hurt more).

"Everyone dreams of having a Dawn Run or an Arkle. Envoi Allen might have been one of them and now he has gone. If he loses his licence, I’m sure at this stage he is so low it's the last thing on his mind.

"He’ll probably lose his licence for some length of time and be fined but I don’t know what.

"Maybe he should take a break and hand his licence in and take six months or 12 months of a sabbatical and see if he can get his life back in order and get himself back in order.

At this stage, he needs to make sure he is okay himself mentally. It is very easy to put a nail in a fella’s coffin and kick a fella when he is down. He knows he made a major blunder and what he did is wrong. I’d say he needs a bit of help now."

Walsh added: "People will castigate him for what he did because it was terrible but I hope mentally he can be strong enough to get over it. It is a huge blow to see your whole life crumbling like a deck of cards in front of you. He has paid for it already.

"His yard is gone, his staff will be redundant. He has 80 staff and the hardship he's brought on his family, himself, and the staff. And the only person he can blame is himself. It wasn't an accident, it was a stupid, senseless thing to do, and he will pay for it dearly for a long time."

Speaking of his personal disappointment at the image, Walsh referred to his own experiences of dealing with horses who have died, including an emotional account of the final days of his Grand National-winner Papillon, who died in 2017 at the age of 26.

RTÉ pundit Ted Walsh. Picture: Ramsey Cardy / SPORTSFILE

"I was disappointed, plain and simple, very disappointed. It's not something I expected from anybody in the racing game. I was always brought up to treat horses with respect when they were alive and dead.

"If an old horse dropped dead at home, the first thing you'd do is take the tack off of him and close his eyes and put a blanket over him. You'd feel a bit down, you'd call somebody, your dad, or when you got older, you rang the owner straight away. 

"And you'd call the people to take him away. You wouldn't want to be around when they're loading him up, you just feel rotten.

"I never thought anyone from a racing background would get any enjoyment or would ever think about doing it (sitting on a dead horse). It is a bit alien to what I was reared up to.

What's even worse is you get an old horse that's with you all your life like Papillon and he's at a stage when he's gone off his food and you can't put him in a nursing home

"You know he's deteriorating and the kind thing to do is to euthanase him. You call Jimmy Kelly to come out and give him an injection, and you watch him drop away, it's a terrible feeling, terrible."

Walsh did note that the image did contrast with all of his previous experiences of dealing with Elliott and visiting his yard.  

"From my experience, and I was in Gordon's yard a couple of times, and looking at the outfit because it is first class, like a five-star hotel, his results show his horses are always in top condition.

"His staff are well turned out. They love the horses. I'm dumbfounded. It is alien to what I expected. I'd never thought I'd see a picture of Gordon like that.

"I'm not his best pal, he's a generation lower than me. But I know him since he is 16 and he's not the man (in that photograph) that I know going racing, or the man I know when I go and visit him in the yard, or the fella looking after his horses and riding when he was younger.

"That is not what I thought he would do. I'm not for one moment saying what he did was right. The picture tells a story. It's one of those bad moments he will regret and will pay dearly for as he has already."

Walsh believes there is a pathway for Elliott to return to the top of the game as a trainer, but it won't be easy.

It must be heartbreaking to see this great industry, the phenomenal success he's had with his horses, in England, Ireland, America, and France, and all gone out the door by one crazy act, and that's what it was, a crazy act of disrespect for a horse. It was shocking

"I'm so sorry for him because I know how hard it is to get to the position he was in. It's a long road back. It's going to be a long struggle."