I know very little about horse racing, leaving aside a brief period of my youth when The Berkeley Court Dude influenced me into studying the form and assessing the various chances of Lester Piggott, Vincent O’Brien, Pat Eddery and company.

This week the Cheltenham Festival has been taking place across the water. The Olympics of jump racing, Cheltenham is always the target for horses, owners, trainers, riders and fans alike. The lead in to this years gig was heavily overshadowed by the controversy over Irish trainer Gordon Elliott, when an old photograph of him sitting on a dead horse became public, leading to the suspension of his training licence.

Horse racing was in need of some hero’s and heroines and Cheltenham duly obliged.

Rachael Blackmore is one of Ireland’s leading jockeys and on Tuesday became the first female rider to win a Champion Hurdle on the Henry de Bromhead trained mare Honeysuckle. Much was made in the media of this piece of history however the biggest tribute, it seems to me, was paid to her by one of her fellow professionals Daryl Jacob who described her as ‘just another jockey’. Her gender makes no difference to her contemporaries, she just happens to be exceptionally good at what she does.

The other interesting point to date about this years Festival concerns the fate of two of Ireland’s great horses. Up to recently Tiger Roll and Envoi Allen were both trained by Gordon Elliott. In the wake of the recent ‘dead horse photo’ saga the owners of Envoi Allen decided to ‘up sticks’ and move house to trainer Henry de Bromhead. On the flip side of that coin Michael O’Leary, of Ryanair fame, and his brother Eddie, the owners of Tiger Roll, decided to stand by Elliott and leave the dual Grand National winner exactly where he was. The end result was Envoi Allen fell at the third fence in his race whereas Tiger Roll stormed home to an emotional fifth Cheltenham success. Is it a coincidence that one horse underperformed and another did not?

What I am trying to say here, in a slightly convoluted manner, is that Gordon Elliott clearly cares about horses and knows how to bring them to their peak. Yes he made a mistake by sitting on that dead horse in 2019, but who amongst us has never erred?

Mistakes are good things so long as we learn from them.