the latest garbage to come from the B.B.C.

​Firstly, definitions 1a, 1b and 2a, as taken from the Penguin English Dictionary. Panorama – an unobstructed or complete view of a landscape or area – a comprehensive presentation or survey of a series of events – a large pictorial representation encircling a spectator.
Tonight’s edition of Panorama will, sadly, inevitably, fall a long way short of any of above definitions.
If was my intention to simply ignore the topic, to read the fall-out in tomorrow’s Racing Post, safe in the knowledge that as with other tar and feather attempts to discredit the sport that after the hoo-ha has reached a crescendo to soon become yesterday’s news, the sport will return to the back pages to go about its business with little or no scrutiny other than from the pernicious and hypocritical Animal Aid, an organisation that if they get their way we would be banned from keeping domestic pets let alone be allowed to race thoroughbreds.
The sad truth is that if horses did not enter the animal food chain our dogs and cats would have to live a vegetarian lifestyle, a diet they are ill-equipped to survive on. At the back of all sales-rooms, with the possible exception of Newmarket’s big yearling sales in the autumn, you will find shady looking characters with beards and beer-bellies whose only interest in proceedings is with the unfortunate horses that fail to find a buyer and only make ‘meat-money’.
It is rarely the trainer who takes the decision ‘to be rid’ of a clinically unsound in wind or limb horse but the owner and I doubt if any owners will be on screen tonight as it is far easier to slag off the last trainer of any horse in question than seek out the owner consigning the horse.
Having said that, we, the horse racing industry, is easy prey for such muck-raking, especially from an organisation with an agenda to peddle. I have said before, perhaps the last time the sport was forced against the ropes, that British and Irish horse-racing should have its own licenced abattoir. I know the suggestion seems contrary to the narrative of ‘we look after horses from birth to death’ but a B.H.A. licenced abattoir, a facility that only deals with thoroughbred racehorses (If such a restriction made the facility financially viable) would give the sport control over the saddest aspect of the life of (some) racehorses and which is also a very vital aspect of their care.
All my life, I admit, even now at my advanced age, naivety has fogged my vision of the sport. I was shocked to the core when the savage news broke that the 1984 Grand National winner Hallo Dandy, in a very poor state of health, had been discovered basically living on a rubbish site. Carrie Humble took him home, gave him the love, care and affection his Aintree exploits should have been reward and he became the flagship of her thoroughbred retraining charity, one of the first of its kind in this country.
I could not understand how Gordon Richards, his trainer, or his jockey Neale Doughty, had lost track of the horse. I, in my child-like naivety, had not given it any thought that those people who had lived well because of a Grand National winners efforts would not go to see him on a regular basis. That his owner, Mr.R. Shaw, could give the horse to a friend to look after and not make regular visits to ensure he was cared-for properly, I found as unforgivable as the Jockey Club suggesting that once a horse is no longer in a licenced racing yard its welfare had nothing to do with them. An abdication of responsibility, I’m sure you agree.
We are more enlightened these days, with much to be proud about in the after-care of racehorses. But we cannot allow ourselves to be such easy targets for negative comment and unfair scrutiny. If the B.H.A. is sincere in its promise of ‘from birth to death’, they cannot allow former racehorses to meet their unfortunate, but in many cases necessary, end in any old abattoir, in an abattoir completely unconnected to the aspirations of the sport.
Horse Racing is always on the back foot when we are thrust into the dark limelight of unfair criticism. Whether it’s the whip or horse welfare, the ‘shit’ comes our way and all we can do is duck and dive. There is so much the sport can be proud of, yet on a regular basis we have to defend ourselves against the antics of individuals or the malice of reactionary scum-bag organisations with political bias and, in this instance, with no love of horses or any animal. We might like to think ourselves as innocent in this trial by media but if only one horse meets a cruel death at the hands of uncaring slaughterman the sport must shoulder some of the guilt.