However, is talk of a lifetime ban fair or realistic? As Lydia Hislop said in yesterday’s podcast, Mick Quinn mistreated horses that were alive. He only got a three year ban and is now training again.
There may be an issue of scale. From memory, Kamil Mahdi got warned off for ten years and a lifetime ban from caring for horses (one he was trying to find ways to circumvent as recently as 2013, to the horror of the Scargill family who’d exposed him).
Without having yet checked to confirm, I assume Mick Quinn’s mistreatment either concerned fewer horses or was seen as less systemic as Mahdi’s. Regardless, I imagine it’s been pretty hard for some to enjoy in isolation the achievements of the game front-runner Pink Sheets in mares’ hurdles this autumn and winter, whilst still remembering her trainer’s previous misdemeanours.
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.