Racehorse ownership comes with responsibility - and it's time we expected more from owners when their horses retire

Shark Hanlon has experienced an abject week by anyone's standards. Shortly after he had to come out and defend the care of one of his former horses, Bedelia, after a picture surfaced on X of her looking gaunt and malnourished, he had his licence suspended for ten months for a separate issue.

The justifiable furore over the condition of Bedelia makes next week’s Racing Post series on life after racing for horses, to mark National Racehorse Week in Britain, a particularly timely one. This will include a look into some of the work being done in Ireland to try to stamp out cases such as Bedelia. But what really irks me in these situations is the stampede to condemn a horse’s former trainer, when owners are invariably absolved of all blame.

In June, Philip Rothwell was thrown under the bus during an eyeopening RTE Investigates programme which shed light on the systemic animal abuse that occured at Ireland's only licensed equine abattoir. He was named and pictured, along with Hanlon and Luke Comer, as a trainer whose horses wound up in the abattoir. He later explained that he hadn't seen one mare in 12 years, four others had foals for breeders since, while two were sent to agents as riding horses.