Impossible to measure damage but Elliott sanction seems fair and proportionate

In suspending one of the sport’s most successful trainers for six months, the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board has sent out an unequivocal statement.

More than that, though, it has hopefully done so without gratuitously ruining a man’s life and career, nor the livelihoods of the near 80-strong workforce who rely on the Cullentra House operation.

The regulator faced a difficult balancing act to be seen to administer justice in such a way as to provide a suitable deterrent and an adequate reminder to the entire industry of its responsibilities, without reacting merely to the loud and uncompromising court of public opinion. That all had to be factored in, of course, because that is the very nature of rule 272.