sport news HORSE POWER: If banned Gary Sanderson ever works with horses again, something ... trends now
It is the bond that strikes you every time. The moment you walk into a yard, you can almost physically see the connection between horse and human.
Lara Hegarty, for example, has looked after the mighty Istabraq for the last seven years at JP McManus’s Martinstown Stud. She confesses to putting more thought into the rugs the greatest hurdler of all time wears than her own wardrobe and loves this old gelding unconditionally.
It’s the same with Adam Connolly, groom of Galopin Des Champs. He’s spent so much time with the powerhouse, he knows his quirks, which involve the dual Cheltenham Gold Cup hero standing with his head over his stable door, watching the birds perched on the roof of the adjacent barn.
The thought of anything happening to Galopin Des Champs makes Connolly recoil and he’ll never forget how, at Cheltenham in 2022, his pride and joy looked to have been badly injured after a final fence fall.
Time stood still for him in that sickening way it does when desperate news arrives.
Former trainer Gary Sanderson (right) last week was banned from racing for two years
Jockey Paul Townend rides Galopin Des Champs to victory in the Cheltenham Gold Cup Steeplechase race
Hegarty and Connolly’s affinity will be familiar with the majority of people within the racing industry and should be known on a wider scale, too, particularly ahead of next week’s Randox Grand National meeting when scrutiny about horse welfare will be at its highest.
Unfortunately, though, it only takes one bad apple to spoil the barrel and this brings us to Gary Sanderson, who last week was banned from racing for two years but, really, should have been drummed out of the sport for time ever more.
Sanderson started working in racing as a 15-year-old in 1979 and, over the course of five decades, has held roles ranging from trainer to owner to breeder. A man who claims on his website to have ‘worked for many top trainers all over the world’ should know what is required to look after a horse.
But last July at York Magistrates’ Court, Sanderson was convicted of nine counts of cruelty or neglect of horses, relating to mares he used for breeding, and a gelding. The case stemmed from the RSPCA seizing four horses from an area known as Bulmer’s Bank near his North Yorkshire base in 2019.
The RSPCA found the horses had worm and lice infestations, poor dental care and overgrown hooves; their body condition was poor and they lived without proper feed. Sanderson, it was deemed, never protected these horses from pain and suffering.
He was also prosecuted over the condition of a fifth horse —Lexi’s Beauty — who was euthanised having been admitted to Rainbow Equine Hospital in Malton. Sanderson had to complete 80 hours of community
