GORDON ELLIOTT has been dealt a huge blow with two top owners removing all their horses from the disgraced trainer’s yard.
Simon Munir, 56, and Isaac Souede, 69, a powerhouse partnership in jumps racing, have cut all ties with Elliott.
The three-time Grand National-winning trainer is still serving a six-month ban for a photo taken of him sitting on a dead horse.
Elliott, 43, apologised for his ‘indefensible moment of madness’ and can return to the sport in September.
But he has been hit with another blow before his comeback as two top owners severed their links with him, report the Racing Post.
Horses Saint D’Oroux and Homme D’Un Soir have been removed from Elliott’s Cullentra House Stables in Ireland, which has been overseen by Denise ‘Sneezy’ Foster since his ban.
Asked if it was true the horses had gone, the owners’ racing manager Anthony Bromley said: “Yes, the two horses have left Gordon this week.”
Munir and Souede have had horses with Elliott since 2013 and in the 2019-20 season had 13 under his charge.
Among the most successful were Grade 3 winner Missy Tata and 2019 Galway Plate winner Borice.
They had also put Vyta Du Roc – a seven-time winner – with Elliott for the final two races of his career in November 2019.
That horse was named as one featured in the BBC Panorama documentary examining practices at F Drury & Sons abattoir near Swindon.
Elliott said the horse had been gifted to another rider at the end of his career ‘in line with the owners’ wishes’.
Bromley confirmed the horse had been given to a member of Elliott’s staff with Munir and Souede ‘satisfied he was going to be suitably rehomed’.
Bromley added: “All of us are obviously shocked and devastated by the information that the programme brought to light.”
