Gordon Elliott: 'I'm sorry for what I did. A chance to move on is all I'm after'

On Thursday, six months after being ignominiously thrust into exile, Gordon Elliott will step out of the shadows and begin his redemptive journey when he makes the first entries of his second coming.

It's a minor, administrative chore in a tectonic quest for atonement, one that will yield comeback runners at low-key fixtures at Punchestown or Sligo next week. He would prefer to clock in and out with the tedium of a shift worker but will not be granted that amnesty.

Elliott's fall from grace was a very public affair, so his return will be played out on similar terms. Some will doubtless view his revival as an affront. The outraged reaction to the emergence last February of a picture of the trainer sitting astride a dead horse, which sparked a whirlwind week that seemed to shake the very foundations of the sport, was unprecedented.