Welcome to Live View – Take the tour to learn more
Start Tour
There is currently 1 person viewing this thread.
"The trainer, the mare and a horror story that shames horse racing"
behind a pay wall
https://www.independent.ie/sport/the-trainer
-the-mare-and-a-horror-story-that-shames-horse-racing-42338299.html
behind a pay wall
https://www.independent.ie/sport/the-trainer
-the-mare-and-a-horror-story-that-shames-horse-racing-42338299.html
Show More
Pagr noy found, can you post the gist of it George.
"Homer Scott surrendered his licence but there are questions that remain unanswered"
The link does work, stewarts, but this is about all you can see
Five years ago, on a summer’s afternoon in July 2018, Homer Scott made the five-minute drive from his home in Co Kildare to meet a journalist from The Irish Field at the Kilkea Castle hotel and golf resort. The venue was his idea. He’d taken the call the day before and had suggested lunch at the golf club, where he was a former captain and president.
Five years ago, on a summer’s afternoon in July 2018, Homer Scott made the five-minute drive from his home in Co Kildare to meet a journalist from The Irish Field at the Kilkea Castle hotel and golf resort. The venue was his idea. He’d taken the call the day before and had suggested lunch at the golf club, where he was a former captain and president.
Paul Kimmage having another go at horse racing -his last attempt was fairly unsuccessful.
The trainer, the mare and a horror story that shames horse racing
Paul Kimmage
Homer Scott surrendered his licence but there are questions that remain unanswered
Trainer Homer Scott.
Trainer Homer Scott.
February 12 2023 02:30 AM
Five years ago, on a summer’s afternoon in July 2018, Homer Scott made the five-minute drive from his home in Co Kildare to meet a journalist from The Irish Field at the Kilkea Castle hotel and golf resort. The venue was his idea. He’d taken the call the day before and had suggested lunch at the golf club, where he was a former captain and president.
That was a thing about Scott — he was never an also-ran, and was still making headlines at the age of 62. A month before, a story in the Racing Post asked: “Who is Rajj? The answer to the question on everyone’s lips.”
A week later, he was ‘The Big Interview’ in The Irish Field: “Homer Scott has his sights set high: One of Irish racing’s most fascinating characters talks to Daragh Ó Conchúir about his current career to date.”
It had been quite a ride.
A native of Templepatrick in Co Antrim, his career started on the Curragh in the 1970s with the beloved Mick O’Toole. His father bought Lisheen, a stud farm near Castledermot, and Scott soon made his name, finishing second to Paddy Mullins in a trainers’ championship, scoring big wins at Cheltenham, and landing a string of lucrative gambles for big-betting owners.
He was, indeed, “one of racing’s most fascinating characters”.
poster
Then the winners dried up and the owners fell away. “I never seemed to be able to make any money,” he told ó Conchúir. “You went to the Derby sale and because you were an alcoholic for horses you bought two and after two years, you found out one of them was no good. So the other one had to be good to pay for the two.”
Then he found Rajj.
His intention was to race the colt but he got injured as a two-year-old in 2005 and didn’t run. It set Scott thinking. A son of Danehill out of a daughter of Sadler’s Wells, Rajj was exceptionally bred. What if he tried him as a stallion?
For almost a decade, Scott used Rajj to cover mares owned mostly by family, then some friends sent two mares with decent pedigrees, and soon Rajj was producing winners on the track: three with Imitation (Insayshable, My Mystique and My Laureate) and two with Royal Jelly (I’m So Fancy and Fancy Feat).
For Scott it was a return to glory: “I was trying to survive,” he told ó Conchúir. “I wouldn’t be at this now only for them. They got me where I am and got Rajj started and I will be forever thankful for them. You can’t do it without good mares.”
He seemed thrilled.
“I’m 62,” he said. “I’m not going out there to take over the world. But I love Rajj. I’ll enjoy making Rajj a champion. I want Rajj to breed a classic winner.”
Then he leaned across the table, smiled at the journalist and lowered his voice. “It’s going to happen,” he said.
But a lot had already happened.
David Mooney and Michelle Shannon. Photo: Steve Humphreys
David Mooney and Michelle Shannon. Photo: Steve Humphreys
1
On Friday the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) banned [Gordon] Elliott for six months (12 months, with half of it suspended). The sanction was about right. After an initial and seriously misjudged attempt to explain his distasteful behaviour, Elliott expressed contrition and said it was a moment of madness he will regret for the rest of his life …
Reacting to the Elliott judgment, the chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), Julie Harrington, spoke of the sport facing an existential crisis. It is true there are a number of non-racing people who feel the sport is inherently cruel. Those who love the game have for years reassured nonbelievers that thoroughbreds live in five-star training centres and are treated like royalty.
That has been the deal, the unwritten contract: the presumption that the horses’ welfare mattered more than anything else. It is not true. Owners and trainers, especially the bigger and more successful, want to win and too often the horse’s health is a secondary consideration.
David Walsh,
The Sunday Times,
March 7, 2021
The writer, Simon Barnes, penned an ode to horses once and the unbreakable bond that exists with those that love them. What it boiled down, he observed in his book, The Horsey Life, was a kind of gene that some people have, and some people don’t. A gene for horsiness.
“It is a symbiosis that has lasted from prehistory through to modern times,” he notes.
“Horses can’t do without humans, but then humans — some humans — really can’t do without horses.”
Take Michelle.
The eldest of nine children born to Christy and Geraldine Shannon, she grew up on a small farm in Co Carlow with sisters, a brother and some cattle and sheep, but it was the ‘gene’ that moulded her. The pony her father brought home one afternoon. The five-minute walk to the local riding school. It was in her blood.
Horsiness.
Her parents were adamant that she get a ‘proper’ job but Michelle wasn’t for turning. She spent a year as a stable hand at Kellistown Stud, flitted for a while between a couple of yards and took a job with Ken Corcoran, a small trainer who was using a gallop near Castledermot to ride out his horses. Homer Scott’s gallop.
“That’s how I got to know him,” she says. “We’d park the box at the back of the yard and unload the horses, and he’d come down the odd time to talk to us. I had two horses of my own at the time, riding horses. They were costing me €70 a piece at a livery yard in Rathvilly, so I asked him, ‘Would you take in my horses if I did a bit of work for you in the afternoons?’ I did a few hours a day at first until April 2015 and [then] it became full-time.”
Lisheen Stud was set on 350 acres of gently rolling fields in Co Kildare, and was home to two stallions, 40 broodmares, a sprinkling of yearlings and foals, and whatever Scott happened to be training.
“He only had about two or three at the time and was sending his better-bred horses to Ger Lyons and Jessica Harrington,” she says.
Her new boss seemed charming, if a tad short-tempered, and carried his chin high. “It was only after I started working there that I started hearing things,” she says. “I was at the riding centre in Bagenalstown one day, getting the cross-country course ready for a one-day event, and this guy asked where I was working. ‘Oh God!’ he said ‘You’re not there are you!’”
Insayshable, the son of Rajj and Imitation, was still a yearling when she arrived. She remembers him coming down from the field to be broken, and the excitement in the yard when he won twice in four starts and was sold for big money to Hong Kong. And there was further glory for the sire with My Mystique and My Laureate but for the dam it was business as usual.
Most breeders use cameras during foaling season or arrange for the mares to be tended in their boxes at night, but Scott didn’t have cameras, and preferred to let nature take its course in the fields. Imitation was in foal. Michelle was concerned: Imitation was almost 22 years old, had a problem with her hips and was starting to creak.
“I said to him: ‘I think the mare is going to foal tonight and she’s looking a bit shook. We’ll bring her into the shed and if you give me a hundred quid I’ll sit up with her. ‘No, no,’ he says. ‘You’re not bringing her in. I’ll keep an eye on her.’ But I went in the following morning and he was like a bear. ‘I should have got you to sit up with her.’
“What had happened basically was … they’re born in this bag, and sometimes it breaks or the mare will break it, but Imitation wasn’t able to get up to break the bag. She stayed down and the foal had suffocated.”
In Breeding the Racehorse, Federico Tesio — a renowned Italian breeder — tells a heart-warming story about a chance encounter between a stallion (Chaleureux), and a mare (Signorina), being paraded through the streets by her owner (Cavaliere Ginistrelli).
“Chaleureux at once proved worthy of his name. He gave signs of a violent infatuation. Signorina looked on him with equal favour and refused to move on. No amount of tugging or pleading had any effect. Ginistrelli sized up the situation at a glance. ‘They love!’ he exclaimed. ‘A love match it shall be.’”
That’s not how it was for Imitation. Hardly a month had passed since her foal had died and she was about to be covered again. Michelle was distraught: “I said, ‘Homer, you can’t do this. The poor mare. She’s not going to be able to hold up the stallion.’ But nothing would do him only to have her covered.”
It turned out exactly as she has feared.
“He brought the mare down, I was holding Rajj, and the minute Rajj went to get up on her she dropped like a fly. He says, ‘We’ll give her a few minutes and try again.’ I lost the plot: ‘You’re not trying her again.’ I led Rajj back and started to cry, but the following day he wanted it done again. Same thing. The mare went straight down. I said, ‘That’s it, Homer!’”
But Imitation would fall again.
“It was a day later,” she says. “Homer led out the stallion and got a friend of his to hold the mare — I just refused to do it — and this time she went down and didn’t get up. She was still in the same spot a day later, the sand ring where we lunge the horses and cover the mares, so he got this guy to call out with one of those mini-diggers.
“They put some ropes around her, and dragged her about 80 metres to a stable around the back where no one would see her. Homer wanted her standing, or in a standing position. He thought the injury might repair if she wasn’t lying down, so they connected her to a sling and hung her from the roof where she died.”
Strong Johnson and Colin Keane after win. Photo: Healy Racing
Strong Johnson and Colin Keane after win. Photo: Healy Racing
2
Jane Mangan admitted on television that she knew little or nothing about Le Cadre Noir (Danetime) as she watched his son Strong Johnson land an exciting three-way finish to the Rockingham Handicap at the Curragh on Sunday. Winning trainer Kieran Cotter was quite emotional too, enjoying success at the headquarters of Irish racing. He trains not too far away. However, the accompanying picture tells what the victory meant, as the four-year-old Strong Johnson is led up by his owner, breeder and now ‘lad’ for the day, David Mooney of Treascon Stud.
The Irish Field,
July 3, 2020
There’s a lot of horsiness in David Mooney but he’s not sure it’s the gene. He grew up on a small farm in Portarlington, spent five years at Clongowes Wood in Clane, and was set for university when his father, Christopher, called his only son ashore.
Treascon was primarily a dairy farm but Christy Mooney had always kept a few horses, so David took a course at the National Stud in Kildare and together they built one of the leading National Hunt studs in the country.
Nine months after Homer Scott’s interview with The Irish Field, in April 2019, Mooney called him to arrange a covering. “I’ll never forget the first day I went down,” he says. “He wanted €3,000 for Rajj, a bit steep, but he’d got another stallion, Tonkin, so I drove over with one of the mares. The first thing that struck me was that the place was falling down. I brought the mare into this covering area but Tonkin wouldn’t cover her, so Homer said he would bring out Rajj. I told him I wasn’t going to pay €3,000 but he said don’t worry, I’ll charge you the same as for Tonkin.
“So I got the mare covered but was shocked at the state of the place. I said, ‘Listen Homer, I’ll give a hand here and we’ll work out something with the covering fees.’ He said, ‘That would be great.’”
The drive from Treascon to Lisheen was 40 minutes. David returned a couple of times that summer and was soon a regular at the yard, initially to fulfil his pact with Scott and then, essentially, to support and be with Michelle. “There were over 60 horses and she had to do most of it on her own,” he says.
Michelle: I had to go over on Sunday morning and could be two hours carrying buckets of water doing the morning feed and Homer would just sit there in his jeep, watching or reading his paper.
David: I managed to convince him to buy a small tractor; there was hay in the shed but no way of getting it out to the horses.
Michelle: If you mentioned spending money to him it was a no. He had 20-odd horses in each field but was not willing to feed them properly; even during the winter when there was no grass, all they got was a few oats. I remember there was a horse one day in bad need of a vet, and I mean dire need, so I went to him: ‘This horse needs to be put to sleep, Homer. I’m ringing the vet. I’ll pay for it out of my own pocket.’ And he absolutely lost the plot with me. You couldn’t talk to him.
David: It would depress you. The mares were riddled with lice and obviously weren’t wormed, and some of their feet were like donkey’s feet, so I bought some worm doses and did them for lice as well.
Michelle: Every year he lost horses. There was a mare called Causeway Coast that went to skin and bone in the field. I’d only been there a short time, maybe two or three months, and he brought the mare to the back shed. It was an absolute cruelty case … hips sticking out … backbone ribs. She lay on her side for three days, groaning and dying. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God!’
David: There were at least four mares buried the first year I was there.
Michelle: There was another mare, Hyde Hall. We got her into the back shed, and tried everything to bring her back but she was old and deteriorating. I was off somewhere getting something and a woman — a neighbour of Homer’s who used his gallops — saw the mare and sent me a text that night going absolutely cracked: ‘Look, that mare needs to be put down.’ I said, ‘I know that, and you know that, but Homer won’t spend the money.’ So she called someone — one of the only people Homer listens to — and said she would put him in serious trouble if he didn’t call the vet and put the mare to sleep humanely.”
David: They were dropping like flies … what was the one buried up by the hedge?
Michelle: Thrift — he got her in the summer and she was gone in six months. Then Fanny Bay and Positano Princess.
David: They were within weeks of each other.
Michelle: Positano is the one in the video. We brought her into the shed and were trying to feed her up but she had gone that far that she just died. We pulled her out with the tractor and left her outside at the back of the yard. I said to Homer: ‘You may get the knacker to take her away’ but he didn’t want to spend the money. ‘No, I’ll get her buried.’ A few days later she was still there, and beginning to rot, so David said, ‘I may pull her out to the field or she’ll disintegrate.’ So we pulled her into the field and she was there for 10 days before ...
David: You forgot to mention …
Michelle: Yeah, sorry. The person Homer used to bury the horses — I don’t want to mention his name — decided he’d had enough and refused to do it. Now you can imagine the stench, it was absolutely disgusting. The dogs were up there every day and coming back stinking. I lost it with Homer. He said, ‘Right, I’ll ring someone else.’
We had to cover the mare every day to keep the dogs from her. It was desperate. ‘Take a video,’ David said. ‘And turn it 360 degrees so he can’t deny it’s his place.’
I remember what he said: ‘It’ll be all right. They’ll forget about it.’
3
On the way back to the barn we went to look at the carcass of the horse that had died … there was actually a dog standing on top of the horse gnawing at its ear as we came around the gate. And I just took a picture of the scavenging that had happened to the horse’s ear when we were there. So, you know, I pointed that out to Mr Mahon, who shooed the dog away but didn’t seem to understand the significance of allowing the carcass of a horse that’s there … that it needs due care and whatever, but there’s also the environmental issues and the disease prevention issues of allowing a horse being scavenged. It’s actually an offence to leave a dead animal in a manner where it can be scavenged by animals under our legislation.
Arthur O’Connor, a
veterinary inspector in
the Investigations Division of the Department of
Agriculture, at the hearing for Stephen Mahon,
April 29, 2021
David Mooney has always had an organised mind. He has kept a diary every day since 1980 and notes with an admirable clarity that Hyde Hall was euthanised by a vet, Elvira Garcia Perez, on the third Friday of August 2021: that Positano Princess was buried on the last Sunday in January 2022; and that it was seven weeks later, Wednesday March 23, when the Department of Agriculture arrived at Homer Scott’s yard.
“It was a local department officer,” he says. “Someone had reported the dead mare and he wanted to know what happened. I was there, coming and going, and overheard the conversation. Homer said he’d got the knacker to take her away and was told by the officer that he would need to produce a receipt.
“He didn’t stay long, just looked around the yard and then went on about his business. I remember saying to Homer: ‘What are you going to do now?’ And I remember what he said: ‘It’ll be all right. They’ll forget about it.’”
Two months later, on May 26, Michelle was tending a horse in the yard when five officers from the Department of Agriculture arrived in two black jeeps. Arthur O’Connor introduced himself, asked who she was, and invited Scott into a jeep for a tour of the farm. The other officers put boots on and started, what appeared to David, a grid search of one of the fields.
When the jeep returned to the yard, O’Connor came to see her.
“He basically went through everything,” she says. “The medicine cabinet, the medical records, the passports for everything in the yard. I had to bring him around all of the stables and tell him what the horse was, and who owned it. He wanted to know how many horses were in each field and whether they were brood mares.
“Then he started going through stuff from a list he was ticking off: Had we fire extinguishers? Did Homer pay the staff bonus? Was there signage up? A first-aid kit? And nearly everything was ‘No’. The only thing I had right was the medicine cabinet and the medical records, because I used to do the paper work and they [the department] had been out a few years ago.”
When the questions had finished, O’Connor set off with Scott again in the jeep. She was in the yard when they returned and remembers the temperature starting to rise. “They got out of the car and O’Connor was talking to Homer: ‘Look, what I’ve seen is not good, the condition of the sheds, horses have died … we were told by the person who reported you that there was a horse lying in the field not so long ago.’
“Then Homer started roaring and told him to get out of the yard. ‘Well, if you want to do it that way Homer, we can go and get diggers and dig up all the graves and it would be such-and-such a fine per horse. So do you still want to tell me there are no horses buried?’ Then Homer calmed down and they went into the house.”
She was having tea with David when O’Connor asked for her again:
“He wanted to know about the welfare of the horses and whether I had any concerns. I didn’t elaborate. I was afraid he would say something to Homer. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to get into any trouble but you see for yourself. Myself and David do whatever we can but it’s hard to look after 60 horses that aren’t your own on what he gives me every week.’ Then he gave me his card and said I could call any time.”
Two weeks later, after a morning spent in Tullow buying feed, she dipped into the house to give Scott the receipt and found him sitting at a table. He seemed perturbed. The department had returned and presented him with some papers. The first was an Animal Health and Welfare notice signed by Arthur O’Connor. The second was a printed photo of horse in a sling hanging from the roof of a shed.
Imitation.
Three days after the notice was served, Scott took delivery of two geldings
4
Q. Have you some purpose here today to say nothing but negative things about Mr Mahon?
A. I don’t know if you listened to my evidence but I did describe horses in good condition. I did describe the stables in good condition. I did describe several good things; that there was water available to horses. You know, have I a purpose? Yeah, I have a purpose in that my job is to ensure that regulations are met. That’s my job. That’s what I do.
Arthur O’Connor, cross-examined by John Rogers SC at the hearing for
Stephen Mahon,
April 29, 2021
On April 13, 2021, a month after Gordon Elliott had caused a storm for sitting on a dead horse, two inspectors from the IHRB arrived at a small trainer’s yard in Co Galway. Two days later, Lynn Hillyer, the IHRB’s chief veterinary officer, arrived with Arthur O’Connor to inspect the yard again. A few hours later Stephen Mahon was sent a directive:
“Having reviewed the information from the two inspections the IHRB is not satisfied that you are acting in a responsible manner with regard to the welfare of horses under your care and control as required under the Rules of Racing … On that basis the directors of the IHRB have decided to exercise their powers under rule 20 (ii) to suspend your licence with immediate effect.”
It was the first time a trainer had been suspended without a formal hearing. Mahon’s subsequent four-year ban following a hearing was the longest ever imposed on a trainer in Ireland. A fitting penalty, according to the racing press.
It was just over a year later when one of racing’s “most fascinating characters” was served with an Animal Health and Welfare notice:
“I, Arthur O’Connor, an authorised officer under the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013 (No 15 of 2013), am of the opinion that you are not, or are not capable of, taking care of the animals more particularly described in Schedule 1, being protected animals.
“Now I, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by Section 42 of the Act require you, in relation to the animals to which this Notice relates to:
(i) Have all adult horse’s feet examined by a farrier and have their hooves pared and shod as advised by that farrier;
(ii) Provide to me the names, microchip numbers and passports of all horses that have died on your premises between the dates of 1st October 2021 and 8th June 2022;
(iii) Ensure that all horses that die on your holding are removed to a registered knackery within 48 hours of dying;
(iv) Reduce the number of mares being kept by you to 20, or, appoint a herd keeper with full responsibility for the horses being kept in your herd number;
(v) Cease the activity of taking horses into livery or for breeding, or, engage enough suitably trained or qualified staff to adequately care for such horses and welfare;
(vi) Ensure that all occupied stables are clean and mucked out at least once per day;
(vii) Clean thoroughly the stables, holding pens and surrounding yards situated on your holding at Lisheen Stud, Castledermot, Co Kildare and maintain them in hygienic manner;
(viii) Treat all paddocks contaminated with ragwort weeds such that they are not allowed to mature to become part of any horse’s diet.
This notice must be complied with by no later than 9:00am on the 1st July 2022.”
Three days after the notice was served, Scott took delivery of two geldings from Ger Lyons — a breach of clause (v). Four days after that, there were some other new arrivals at Lisheen — 120 sheep. Scott did comply with some of the clauses — a farrier was called and the ragwort, or at least some of it, was treated — but the clock was ticking towards July 1 and he was headed for trouble:
“A person who fails to comply with, or causes or permits another person to contravene, this notice commits an offence and is liable –
(a) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding €5,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to both, or
(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding €250,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years or to both.
“In addition, the animals are liable to be seized and detained and disposed of under the aforementioned Act.”
Then something extraordinary happened.
5
The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board has said it stands fully behind its chief veterinary officer and head of anti-doping Dr Lynn Hillyer. It insisted regulatory officials acted ‘professionally and appropriately’ throughout its investigation of animal welfare regulation breaches that led to former trainer Stephen Mahon losing his licence.
Brian O’Connor,
The Irish Times,
February 27, 2022
On June 30, a day before the department’s deadline, Lynn Hillyer arrived at the yard with another official. Michelle didn’t know the “smallish guy with glasses” but had seen Hillyer at the races plenty of times.
“She got out of the car, showed me her ID and asked if Homer was around. I went into the house and told Homer, and she started looking around the yard. Homer came out. We were standing around the jeep. She said, ‘I know you’ve had the department out recently, and I was supposed to come out before this, but I didn’t want to land two visits on you close together.’
“She said, ‘Are you aware that your list — or whatever the proper name for it is — is due to be done by 9am tomorrow.’ He said, ‘I am.’ She said, ‘Well am I going to find that everything is done? Because there’s one thing I can see straightway that’s not done.’
“Then Homer started to rile up: ‘I’ve held a licence longer than you’re alive. You’re not going to take it away from me.’ Then she said, ‘Okay Homer, I’m going to let you calm down … Michelle, can you come with me please?’ Then she took me off down the fields to chat and look at the horses.”
There were issues.
“She asked me, ‘How many mares are in foal?’ I told her I didn’t know because none of them had been scanned. She was horrified. It was June. There could be twins. So we had to box every single horse to Elvira’s in Tankardstown to get them scanned — 36 of them!
“There was a mare with a swollen hind leg that had come from the north, some friend of Homer’s, for a covering. ‘Why was it on the premises?’ she said. ‘Why hasn’t it been treated? It’s Homer’s responsibility if it’s on his premises.’
“There was a young horse that was chronically lame with cracks up his feet. I was to have it X-rayed by the vet and send her the report. We went to the next field: ‘Catch that one for me please … Have her feet been done?’ They were all done, I said. ‘Well they need to be done again, there’s long-term damage there.’”
They were almost done, Michelle says, when Hillyer asked about the dead horses. ‘She said, ‘You said something briefly to Arthur.’ I said, ‘Yeah, well, I was afraid he might say something to Homer but I’ve another job lined up now. I just want to make sure the horses are going to be looked after when I leave.’
“She said, ‘This isn’t a once-off visit, Michelle. This is going to be a regular occurrence now that he’s on our radar.’ So I told her everything, the stuff I’d seen over the years. I told her about the video. I showed her the video. We walked to the spot where it was taken.”
By the end of July, Homer Scott had quietly surrendered his trainer’s licence to the IHRB. Michelle left Lisheen to start a new job. Arthur O’Connor and the Department of Agriculture had not returned to the yard; no sanctions had been imposed; and the more Michelle thought about it, the more it bothered her. She had spent seven years with Scott and wished him no harm — but what had been done for the welfare of the horses?
Strong Johnson and Colin Keane win for trainer Homer Scott (right). Photo: Healy Racing
Strong Johnson and Colin Keane win for trainer Homer Scott (right). Photo: Healy Racing
6
Q. You see, I’m just concerned. Can you tell us about your arrangements … Are you able to voice clearly to the Committee what dealings you had with …
A. I can tell you very clearly that the reason that we were on Mr Mahon’s yard in the first place was because we had received information via an individual ... that there were potential concerns on Mr Mahon’s yard … We considered it as a team and in all honesty whenever there’s any issue of a welfare case, we would act.
Q. Sorry?
A. We would act. We would visit a yard. If there’s any [doubt] about a yard and welfare we would act.
Lynn Hillyer cross-examined
by John Rogers SC at the hearing
for Stephen Mahon
May 3, 2021
Things got worse in the weeks that followed. Michelle had made plenty of friends in Castledermot and they would call or send messages about Lisheen. The stallion, Tonkin, had broken out one night and galloped all over the farm. A roof out the back had collapsed and you couldn’t get up or down.
The walker, sand ring and gallop hadn’t been used for months. The sheep wire in the field was all over the place and a horse had tangled in it. The glass in the tractor doors had shattered and been left on the ground. There were dogs everywhere and little hay in the fields.
On October 4, David called Arthur O’Connor: “He said they would look into it.” A month passed. Then another. Then, on December 5, Michelle forwarded a message she had just received to Lynn Hillyer:
“Hi Lynn, Michelle here. I’m really upset … constantly getting messages like this [about] Homer’s … Why was nothing followed up by yourselves or the Department of Agriculture regarding the poor horse welfare? I was told that sheep and horses are dying, one of them being a horse called Deya.”
The following afternoon Hillyer replied: “Thanks Michelle — the local division were there recently I was told by Arthur, but I will follow up now on this — thanks again.”
Five minutes later she sent another: “Michelle, I can’t find a Deya that’s raced at least. I will contact Weatherbys.”
Two minutes later Hillyer called and sent another message: “Was just calling to ask when you started getting messages like this. Trying to see if it was since the recent DAFM visit. I’ve contacted them in any event.”
“Deya was a mare,” Michelle replied. “I’m constantly getting these messages.”
Twenty minutes later Hillyer replied: “OK. Just off the phone to the DAFM — [they] confirmed they did go out a short while ago and they appreciate the update.”
Homer Scott surrendered his licence. Photo: Healy Racing
Homer Scott surrendered his licence. Photo: Healy Racing
7
On Thursday, Homer Scott told the Sunday Independent: “I’m the best man in Kildare to look after horses.”
Imitation had been put down and taken away by Moyle Animal Collection, a Carlow-based company. Ned Deane of that company confirmed he has disposed of some animals for Scott, but had no recollection of Imitation.
In relation to the death of Positano Princess and the video, Homer Scott said: “I don’t know … why are people saying bad things about me? Like I mean, my horses are all well fed and they’re all well looked after.” He added: “I don’t do anything bad to my animals, all I do is look after them as best I can.”
PK: You don’t bury horses on your land?
HS: I certainly do not. I buried a few horses up till about three years ago, a couple of horses on the land, and they told me never to do it again and I didn’t.
PK: So the video is false?
HS: Sorry, what video is this?
PK: The video of the dead horse that was buried on your land last January … on January 29 [2022]?
HS: I don’t know. Is there many people burying horses on land?
PK: I’ve no idea. I’m asking about your land and what you do.
HS: No, I don’t bury any horses. I had a horse died this week, and the people came and looked at it yesterday.
Darragh Keogh, who works for Scott, said that Department of Agriculture officials had visited the yard before Christmas and claimed they were happy with the improvements that had been made.
We sent an email to Arthur O’Connor with a series of questions, including why officials hadn’t revisited the yard by July 1. He directed us to a spokesperson: “The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine does not comment in relation to ongoing investigations.”
We also put the following to Lynn Hillyer: “On June 30, you were shown a video of a dead mare on Homer’s land. You were also shown the spot where the video was taken, and where the mare was buried. What action did you take please?”
Hillyer did not reply but we received the following from a spokesperson for the IHRB:
“The IHRB carried out an unnotified inspection at Lisheen Stud, Castledermot, Co Kildare, premises of licensed trainer Mr JH Scott, on 30 June 2022. A summary of the findings from the inspection was provided to Mr Scott, after which the IHRB secured the surrendering of Mr Scott’s Trainer’s Licence, thus preventing him from acting in that capacity with immediate effect. The IHRB has subsequently declined to license any training operations on that premises by any individual.
“Enforcement of the Animal Health and Welfare notice served on Mr Scott by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and any actions to be taken under the Animal Health and Welfare Act are a matter for the Department and not the IHRB.”
Asked if there had been a hearing, and if Scott had voluntarily handed in his licence, the spokesperson replied: “One of the most severe sanctions that can be imposed on any trainer by the IHRB is removal of their licence. In light of the circumstances in this case, the IHRB was satisfied to have secured the surrender of Mr Scott’s licence without the necessity of a hearing.”
We searched the IHRB website but there is no record of any sanction imposed on Homer Scott, and no mention of it from the man himself. The 67-year-old still keeps about 50 horses on his land and says: “We look after them seriously well.”
Paul Kimmage
Homer Scott surrendered his licence but there are questions that remain unanswered
Trainer Homer Scott.
Trainer Homer Scott.
February 12 2023 02:30 AM
Five years ago, on a summer’s afternoon in July 2018, Homer Scott made the five-minute drive from his home in Co Kildare to meet a journalist from The Irish Field at the Kilkea Castle hotel and golf resort. The venue was his idea. He’d taken the call the day before and had suggested lunch at the golf club, where he was a former captain and president.
That was a thing about Scott — he was never an also-ran, and was still making headlines at the age of 62. A month before, a story in the Racing Post asked: “Who is Rajj? The answer to the question on everyone’s lips.”
A week later, he was ‘The Big Interview’ in The Irish Field: “Homer Scott has his sights set high: One of Irish racing’s most fascinating characters talks to Daragh Ó Conchúir about his current career to date.”
It had been quite a ride.
A native of Templepatrick in Co Antrim, his career started on the Curragh in the 1970s with the beloved Mick O’Toole. His father bought Lisheen, a stud farm near Castledermot, and Scott soon made his name, finishing second to Paddy Mullins in a trainers’ championship, scoring big wins at Cheltenham, and landing a string of lucrative gambles for big-betting owners.
He was, indeed, “one of racing’s most fascinating characters”.
poster
Then the winners dried up and the owners fell away. “I never seemed to be able to make any money,” he told ó Conchúir. “You went to the Derby sale and because you were an alcoholic for horses you bought two and after two years, you found out one of them was no good. So the other one had to be good to pay for the two.”
Then he found Rajj.
His intention was to race the colt but he got injured as a two-year-old in 2005 and didn’t run. It set Scott thinking. A son of Danehill out of a daughter of Sadler’s Wells, Rajj was exceptionally bred. What if he tried him as a stallion?
For almost a decade, Scott used Rajj to cover mares owned mostly by family, then some friends sent two mares with decent pedigrees, and soon Rajj was producing winners on the track: three with Imitation (Insayshable, My Mystique and My Laureate) and two with Royal Jelly (I’m So Fancy and Fancy Feat).
For Scott it was a return to glory: “I was trying to survive,” he told ó Conchúir. “I wouldn’t be at this now only for them. They got me where I am and got Rajj started and I will be forever thankful for them. You can’t do it without good mares.”
He seemed thrilled.
“I’m 62,” he said. “I’m not going out there to take over the world. But I love Rajj. I’ll enjoy making Rajj a champion. I want Rajj to breed a classic winner.”
Then he leaned across the table, smiled at the journalist and lowered his voice. “It’s going to happen,” he said.
But a lot had already happened.
David Mooney and Michelle Shannon. Photo: Steve Humphreys
David Mooney and Michelle Shannon. Photo: Steve Humphreys
1
On Friday the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) banned [Gordon] Elliott for six months (12 months, with half of it suspended). The sanction was about right. After an initial and seriously misjudged attempt to explain his distasteful behaviour, Elliott expressed contrition and said it was a moment of madness he will regret for the rest of his life …
Reacting to the Elliott judgment, the chief executive of the British Horseracing Authority (BHA), Julie Harrington, spoke of the sport facing an existential crisis. It is true there are a number of non-racing people who feel the sport is inherently cruel. Those who love the game have for years reassured nonbelievers that thoroughbreds live in five-star training centres and are treated like royalty.
That has been the deal, the unwritten contract: the presumption that the horses’ welfare mattered more than anything else. It is not true. Owners and trainers, especially the bigger and more successful, want to win and too often the horse’s health is a secondary consideration.
David Walsh,
The Sunday Times,
March 7, 2021
The writer, Simon Barnes, penned an ode to horses once and the unbreakable bond that exists with those that love them. What it boiled down, he observed in his book, The Horsey Life, was a kind of gene that some people have, and some people don’t. A gene for horsiness.
“It is a symbiosis that has lasted from prehistory through to modern times,” he notes.
“Horses can’t do without humans, but then humans — some humans — really can’t do without horses.”
Take Michelle.
The eldest of nine children born to Christy and Geraldine Shannon, she grew up on a small farm in Co Carlow with sisters, a brother and some cattle and sheep, but it was the ‘gene’ that moulded her. The pony her father brought home one afternoon. The five-minute walk to the local riding school. It was in her blood.
Horsiness.
Her parents were adamant that she get a ‘proper’ job but Michelle wasn’t for turning. She spent a year as a stable hand at Kellistown Stud, flitted for a while between a couple of yards and took a job with Ken Corcoran, a small trainer who was using a gallop near Castledermot to ride out his horses. Homer Scott’s gallop.
“That’s how I got to know him,” she says. “We’d park the box at the back of the yard and unload the horses, and he’d come down the odd time to talk to us. I had two horses of my own at the time, riding horses. They were costing me €70 a piece at a livery yard in Rathvilly, so I asked him, ‘Would you take in my horses if I did a bit of work for you in the afternoons?’ I did a few hours a day at first until April 2015 and [then] it became full-time.”
Lisheen Stud was set on 350 acres of gently rolling fields in Co Kildare, and was home to two stallions, 40 broodmares, a sprinkling of yearlings and foals, and whatever Scott happened to be training.
“He only had about two or three at the time and was sending his better-bred horses to Ger Lyons and Jessica Harrington,” she says.
Her new boss seemed charming, if a tad short-tempered, and carried his chin high. “It was only after I started working there that I started hearing things,” she says. “I was at the riding centre in Bagenalstown one day, getting the cross-country course ready for a one-day event, and this guy asked where I was working. ‘Oh God!’ he said ‘You’re not there are you!’”
Insayshable, the son of Rajj and Imitation, was still a yearling when she arrived. She remembers him coming down from the field to be broken, and the excitement in the yard when he won twice in four starts and was sold for big money to Hong Kong. And there was further glory for the sire with My Mystique and My Laureate but for the dam it was business as usual.
Most breeders use cameras during foaling season or arrange for the mares to be tended in their boxes at night, but Scott didn’t have cameras, and preferred to let nature take its course in the fields. Imitation was in foal. Michelle was concerned: Imitation was almost 22 years old, had a problem with her hips and was starting to creak.
“I said to him: ‘I think the mare is going to foal tonight and she’s looking a bit shook. We’ll bring her into the shed and if you give me a hundred quid I’ll sit up with her. ‘No, no,’ he says. ‘You’re not bringing her in. I’ll keep an eye on her.’ But I went in the following morning and he was like a bear. ‘I should have got you to sit up with her.’
“What had happened basically was … they’re born in this bag, and sometimes it breaks or the mare will break it, but Imitation wasn’t able to get up to break the bag. She stayed down and the foal had suffocated.”
In Breeding the Racehorse, Federico Tesio — a renowned Italian breeder — tells a heart-warming story about a chance encounter between a stallion (Chaleureux), and a mare (Signorina), being paraded through the streets by her owner (Cavaliere Ginistrelli).
“Chaleureux at once proved worthy of his name. He gave signs of a violent infatuation. Signorina looked on him with equal favour and refused to move on. No amount of tugging or pleading had any effect. Ginistrelli sized up the situation at a glance. ‘They love!’ he exclaimed. ‘A love match it shall be.’”
That’s not how it was for Imitation. Hardly a month had passed since her foal had died and she was about to be covered again. Michelle was distraught: “I said, ‘Homer, you can’t do this. The poor mare. She’s not going to be able to hold up the stallion.’ But nothing would do him only to have her covered.”
It turned out exactly as she has feared.
“He brought the mare down, I was holding Rajj, and the minute Rajj went to get up on her she dropped like a fly. He says, ‘We’ll give her a few minutes and try again.’ I lost the plot: ‘You’re not trying her again.’ I led Rajj back and started to cry, but the following day he wanted it done again. Same thing. The mare went straight down. I said, ‘That’s it, Homer!’”
But Imitation would fall again.
“It was a day later,” she says. “Homer led out the stallion and got a friend of his to hold the mare — I just refused to do it — and this time she went down and didn’t get up. She was still in the same spot a day later, the sand ring where we lunge the horses and cover the mares, so he got this guy to call out with one of those mini-diggers.
“They put some ropes around her, and dragged her about 80 metres to a stable around the back where no one would see her. Homer wanted her standing, or in a standing position. He thought the injury might repair if she wasn’t lying down, so they connected her to a sling and hung her from the roof where she died.”
Strong Johnson and Colin Keane after win. Photo: Healy Racing
Strong Johnson and Colin Keane after win. Photo: Healy Racing
2
Jane Mangan admitted on television that she knew little or nothing about Le Cadre Noir (Danetime) as she watched his son Strong Johnson land an exciting three-way finish to the Rockingham Handicap at the Curragh on Sunday. Winning trainer Kieran Cotter was quite emotional too, enjoying success at the headquarters of Irish racing. He trains not too far away. However, the accompanying picture tells what the victory meant, as the four-year-old Strong Johnson is led up by his owner, breeder and now ‘lad’ for the day, David Mooney of Treascon Stud.
The Irish Field,
July 3, 2020
There’s a lot of horsiness in David Mooney but he’s not sure it’s the gene. He grew up on a small farm in Portarlington, spent five years at Clongowes Wood in Clane, and was set for university when his father, Christopher, called his only son ashore.
Treascon was primarily a dairy farm but Christy Mooney had always kept a few horses, so David took a course at the National Stud in Kildare and together they built one of the leading National Hunt studs in the country.
Nine months after Homer Scott’s interview with The Irish Field, in April 2019, Mooney called him to arrange a covering. “I’ll never forget the first day I went down,” he says. “He wanted €3,000 for Rajj, a bit steep, but he’d got another stallion, Tonkin, so I drove over with one of the mares. The first thing that struck me was that the place was falling down. I brought the mare into this covering area but Tonkin wouldn’t cover her, so Homer said he would bring out Rajj. I told him I wasn’t going to pay €3,000 but he said don’t worry, I’ll charge you the same as for Tonkin.
“So I got the mare covered but was shocked at the state of the place. I said, ‘Listen Homer, I’ll give a hand here and we’ll work out something with the covering fees.’ He said, ‘That would be great.’”
The drive from Treascon to Lisheen was 40 minutes. David returned a couple of times that summer and was soon a regular at the yard, initially to fulfil his pact with Scott and then, essentially, to support and be with Michelle. “There were over 60 horses and she had to do most of it on her own,” he says.
Michelle: I had to go over on Sunday morning and could be two hours carrying buckets of water doing the morning feed and Homer would just sit there in his jeep, watching or reading his paper.
David: I managed to convince him to buy a small tractor; there was hay in the shed but no way of getting it out to the horses.
Michelle: If you mentioned spending money to him it was a no. He had 20-odd horses in each field but was not willing to feed them properly; even during the winter when there was no grass, all they got was a few oats. I remember there was a horse one day in bad need of a vet, and I mean dire need, so I went to him: ‘This horse needs to be put to sleep, Homer. I’m ringing the vet. I’ll pay for it out of my own pocket.’ And he absolutely lost the plot with me. You couldn’t talk to him.
David: It would depress you. The mares were riddled with lice and obviously weren’t wormed, and some of their feet were like donkey’s feet, so I bought some worm doses and did them for lice as well.
Michelle: Every year he lost horses. There was a mare called Causeway Coast that went to skin and bone in the field. I’d only been there a short time, maybe two or three months, and he brought the mare to the back shed. It was an absolute cruelty case … hips sticking out … backbone ribs. She lay on her side for three days, groaning and dying. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God!’
David: There were at least four mares buried the first year I was there.
Michelle: There was another mare, Hyde Hall. We got her into the back shed, and tried everything to bring her back but she was old and deteriorating. I was off somewhere getting something and a woman — a neighbour of Homer’s who used his gallops — saw the mare and sent me a text that night going absolutely cracked: ‘Look, that mare needs to be put down.’ I said, ‘I know that, and you know that, but Homer won’t spend the money.’ So she called someone — one of the only people Homer listens to — and said she would put him in serious trouble if he didn’t call the vet and put the mare to sleep humanely.”
David: They were dropping like flies … what was the one buried up by the hedge?
Michelle: Thrift — he got her in the summer and she was gone in six months. Then Fanny Bay and Positano Princess.
David: They were within weeks of each other.
Michelle: Positano is the one in the video. We brought her into the shed and were trying to feed her up but she had gone that far that she just died. We pulled her out with the tractor and left her outside at the back of the yard. I said to Homer: ‘You may get the knacker to take her away’ but he didn’t want to spend the money. ‘No, I’ll get her buried.’ A few days later she was still there, and beginning to rot, so David said, ‘I may pull her out to the field or she’ll disintegrate.’ So we pulled her into the field and she was there for 10 days before ...
David: You forgot to mention …
Michelle: Yeah, sorry. The person Homer used to bury the horses — I don’t want to mention his name — decided he’d had enough and refused to do it. Now you can imagine the stench, it was absolutely disgusting. The dogs were up there every day and coming back stinking. I lost it with Homer. He said, ‘Right, I’ll ring someone else.’
We had to cover the mare every day to keep the dogs from her. It was desperate. ‘Take a video,’ David said. ‘And turn it 360 degrees so he can’t deny it’s his place.’
I remember what he said: ‘It’ll be all right. They’ll forget about it.’
3
On the way back to the barn we went to look at the carcass of the horse that had died … there was actually a dog standing on top of the horse gnawing at its ear as we came around the gate. And I just took a picture of the scavenging that had happened to the horse’s ear when we were there. So, you know, I pointed that out to Mr Mahon, who shooed the dog away but didn’t seem to understand the significance of allowing the carcass of a horse that’s there … that it needs due care and whatever, but there’s also the environmental issues and the disease prevention issues of allowing a horse being scavenged. It’s actually an offence to leave a dead animal in a manner where it can be scavenged by animals under our legislation.
Arthur O’Connor, a
veterinary inspector in
the Investigations Division of the Department of
Agriculture, at the hearing for Stephen Mahon,
April 29, 2021
David Mooney has always had an organised mind. He has kept a diary every day since 1980 and notes with an admirable clarity that Hyde Hall was euthanised by a vet, Elvira Garcia Perez, on the third Friday of August 2021: that Positano Princess was buried on the last Sunday in January 2022; and that it was seven weeks later, Wednesday March 23, when the Department of Agriculture arrived at Homer Scott’s yard.
“It was a local department officer,” he says. “Someone had reported the dead mare and he wanted to know what happened. I was there, coming and going, and overheard the conversation. Homer said he’d got the knacker to take her away and was told by the officer that he would need to produce a receipt.
“He didn’t stay long, just looked around the yard and then went on about his business. I remember saying to Homer: ‘What are you going to do now?’ And I remember what he said: ‘It’ll be all right. They’ll forget about it.’”
Two months later, on May 26, Michelle was tending a horse in the yard when five officers from the Department of Agriculture arrived in two black jeeps. Arthur O’Connor introduced himself, asked who she was, and invited Scott into a jeep for a tour of the farm. The other officers put boots on and started, what appeared to David, a grid search of one of the fields.
When the jeep returned to the yard, O’Connor came to see her.
“He basically went through everything,” she says. “The medicine cabinet, the medical records, the passports for everything in the yard. I had to bring him around all of the stables and tell him what the horse was, and who owned it. He wanted to know how many horses were in each field and whether they were brood mares.
“Then he started going through stuff from a list he was ticking off: Had we fire extinguishers? Did Homer pay the staff bonus? Was there signage up? A first-aid kit? And nearly everything was ‘No’. The only thing I had right was the medicine cabinet and the medical records, because I used to do the paper work and they [the department] had been out a few years ago.”
When the questions had finished, O’Connor set off with Scott again in the jeep. She was in the yard when they returned and remembers the temperature starting to rise. “They got out of the car and O’Connor was talking to Homer: ‘Look, what I’ve seen is not good, the condition of the sheds, horses have died … we were told by the person who reported you that there was a horse lying in the field not so long ago.’
“Then Homer started roaring and told him to get out of the yard. ‘Well, if you want to do it that way Homer, we can go and get diggers and dig up all the graves and it would be such-and-such a fine per horse. So do you still want to tell me there are no horses buried?’ Then Homer calmed down and they went into the house.”
She was having tea with David when O’Connor asked for her again:
“He wanted to know about the welfare of the horses and whether I had any concerns. I didn’t elaborate. I was afraid he would say something to Homer. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to get into any trouble but you see for yourself. Myself and David do whatever we can but it’s hard to look after 60 horses that aren’t your own on what he gives me every week.’ Then he gave me his card and said I could call any time.”
Two weeks later, after a morning spent in Tullow buying feed, she dipped into the house to give Scott the receipt and found him sitting at a table. He seemed perturbed. The department had returned and presented him with some papers. The first was an Animal Health and Welfare notice signed by Arthur O’Connor. The second was a printed photo of horse in a sling hanging from the roof of a shed.
Imitation.
Three days after the notice was served, Scott took delivery of two geldings
4
Q. Have you some purpose here today to say nothing but negative things about Mr Mahon?
A. I don’t know if you listened to my evidence but I did describe horses in good condition. I did describe the stables in good condition. I did describe several good things; that there was water available to horses. You know, have I a purpose? Yeah, I have a purpose in that my job is to ensure that regulations are met. That’s my job. That’s what I do.
Arthur O’Connor, cross-examined by John Rogers SC at the hearing for
Stephen Mahon,
April 29, 2021
On April 13, 2021, a month after Gordon Elliott had caused a storm for sitting on a dead horse, two inspectors from the IHRB arrived at a small trainer’s yard in Co Galway. Two days later, Lynn Hillyer, the IHRB’s chief veterinary officer, arrived with Arthur O’Connor to inspect the yard again. A few hours later Stephen Mahon was sent a directive:
“Having reviewed the information from the two inspections the IHRB is not satisfied that you are acting in a responsible manner with regard to the welfare of horses under your care and control as required under the Rules of Racing … On that basis the directors of the IHRB have decided to exercise their powers under rule 20 (ii) to suspend your licence with immediate effect.”
It was the first time a trainer had been suspended without a formal hearing. Mahon’s subsequent four-year ban following a hearing was the longest ever imposed on a trainer in Ireland. A fitting penalty, according to the racing press.
It was just over a year later when one of racing’s “most fascinating characters” was served with an Animal Health and Welfare notice:
“I, Arthur O’Connor, an authorised officer under the Animal Health and Welfare Act 2013 (No 15 of 2013), am of the opinion that you are not, or are not capable of, taking care of the animals more particularly described in Schedule 1, being protected animals.
“Now I, in exercise of the powers conferred on me by Section 42 of the Act require you, in relation to the animals to which this Notice relates to:
(i) Have all adult horse’s feet examined by a farrier and have their hooves pared and shod as advised by that farrier;
(ii) Provide to me the names, microchip numbers and passports of all horses that have died on your premises between the dates of 1st October 2021 and 8th June 2022;
(iii) Ensure that all horses that die on your holding are removed to a registered knackery within 48 hours of dying;
(iv) Reduce the number of mares being kept by you to 20, or, appoint a herd keeper with full responsibility for the horses being kept in your herd number;
(v) Cease the activity of taking horses into livery or for breeding, or, engage enough suitably trained or qualified staff to adequately care for such horses and welfare;
(vi) Ensure that all occupied stables are clean and mucked out at least once per day;
(vii) Clean thoroughly the stables, holding pens and surrounding yards situated on your holding at Lisheen Stud, Castledermot, Co Kildare and maintain them in hygienic manner;
(viii) Treat all paddocks contaminated with ragwort weeds such that they are not allowed to mature to become part of any horse’s diet.
This notice must be complied with by no later than 9:00am on the 1st July 2022.”
Three days after the notice was served, Scott took delivery of two geldings from Ger Lyons — a breach of clause (v). Four days after that, there were some other new arrivals at Lisheen — 120 sheep. Scott did comply with some of the clauses — a farrier was called and the ragwort, or at least some of it, was treated — but the clock was ticking towards July 1 and he was headed for trouble:
“A person who fails to comply with, or causes or permits another person to contravene, this notice commits an offence and is liable –
(a) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding €5,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to both, or
(b) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding €250,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 5 years or to both.
“In addition, the animals are liable to be seized and detained and disposed of under the aforementioned Act.”
Then something extraordinary happened.
5
The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board has said it stands fully behind its chief veterinary officer and head of anti-doping Dr Lynn Hillyer. It insisted regulatory officials acted ‘professionally and appropriately’ throughout its investigation of animal welfare regulation breaches that led to former trainer Stephen Mahon losing his licence.
Brian O’Connor,
The Irish Times,
February 27, 2022
On June 30, a day before the department’s deadline, Lynn Hillyer arrived at the yard with another official. Michelle didn’t know the “smallish guy with glasses” but had seen Hillyer at the races plenty of times.
“She got out of the car, showed me her ID and asked if Homer was around. I went into the house and told Homer, and she started looking around the yard. Homer came out. We were standing around the jeep. She said, ‘I know you’ve had the department out recently, and I was supposed to come out before this, but I didn’t want to land two visits on you close together.’
“She said, ‘Are you aware that your list — or whatever the proper name for it is — is due to be done by 9am tomorrow.’ He said, ‘I am.’ She said, ‘Well am I going to find that everything is done? Because there’s one thing I can see straightway that’s not done.’
“Then Homer started to rile up: ‘I’ve held a licence longer than you’re alive. You’re not going to take it away from me.’ Then she said, ‘Okay Homer, I’m going to let you calm down … Michelle, can you come with me please?’ Then she took me off down the fields to chat and look at the horses.”
There were issues.
“She asked me, ‘How many mares are in foal?’ I told her I didn’t know because none of them had been scanned. She was horrified. It was June. There could be twins. So we had to box every single horse to Elvira’s in Tankardstown to get them scanned — 36 of them!
“There was a mare with a swollen hind leg that had come from the north, some friend of Homer’s, for a covering. ‘Why was it on the premises?’ she said. ‘Why hasn’t it been treated? It’s Homer’s responsibility if it’s on his premises.’
“There was a young horse that was chronically lame with cracks up his feet. I was to have it X-rayed by the vet and send her the report. We went to the next field: ‘Catch that one for me please … Have her feet been done?’ They were all done, I said. ‘Well they need to be done again, there’s long-term damage there.’”
They were almost done, Michelle says, when Hillyer asked about the dead horses. ‘She said, ‘You said something briefly to Arthur.’ I said, ‘Yeah, well, I was afraid he might say something to Homer but I’ve another job lined up now. I just want to make sure the horses are going to be looked after when I leave.’
“She said, ‘This isn’t a once-off visit, Michelle. This is going to be a regular occurrence now that he’s on our radar.’ So I told her everything, the stuff I’d seen over the years. I told her about the video. I showed her the video. We walked to the spot where it was taken.”
By the end of July, Homer Scott had quietly surrendered his trainer’s licence to the IHRB. Michelle left Lisheen to start a new job. Arthur O’Connor and the Department of Agriculture had not returned to the yard; no sanctions had been imposed; and the more Michelle thought about it, the more it bothered her. She had spent seven years with Scott and wished him no harm — but what had been done for the welfare of the horses?
Strong Johnson and Colin Keane win for trainer Homer Scott (right). Photo: Healy Racing
Strong Johnson and Colin Keane win for trainer Homer Scott (right). Photo: Healy Racing
6
Q. You see, I’m just concerned. Can you tell us about your arrangements … Are you able to voice clearly to the Committee what dealings you had with …
A. I can tell you very clearly that the reason that we were on Mr Mahon’s yard in the first place was because we had received information via an individual ... that there were potential concerns on Mr Mahon’s yard … We considered it as a team and in all honesty whenever there’s any issue of a welfare case, we would act.
Q. Sorry?
A. We would act. We would visit a yard. If there’s any [doubt] about a yard and welfare we would act.
Lynn Hillyer cross-examined
by John Rogers SC at the hearing
for Stephen Mahon
May 3, 2021
Things got worse in the weeks that followed. Michelle had made plenty of friends in Castledermot and they would call or send messages about Lisheen. The stallion, Tonkin, had broken out one night and galloped all over the farm. A roof out the back had collapsed and you couldn’t get up or down.
The walker, sand ring and gallop hadn’t been used for months. The sheep wire in the field was all over the place and a horse had tangled in it. The glass in the tractor doors had shattered and been left on the ground. There were dogs everywhere and little hay in the fields.
On October 4, David called Arthur O’Connor: “He said they would look into it.” A month passed. Then another. Then, on December 5, Michelle forwarded a message she had just received to Lynn Hillyer:
“Hi Lynn, Michelle here. I’m really upset … constantly getting messages like this [about] Homer’s … Why was nothing followed up by yourselves or the Department of Agriculture regarding the poor horse welfare? I was told that sheep and horses are dying, one of them being a horse called Deya.”
The following afternoon Hillyer replied: “Thanks Michelle — the local division were there recently I was told by Arthur, but I will follow up now on this — thanks again.”
Five minutes later she sent another: “Michelle, I can’t find a Deya that’s raced at least. I will contact Weatherbys.”
Two minutes later Hillyer called and sent another message: “Was just calling to ask when you started getting messages like this. Trying to see if it was since the recent DAFM visit. I’ve contacted them in any event.”
“Deya was a mare,” Michelle replied. “I’m constantly getting these messages.”
Twenty minutes later Hillyer replied: “OK. Just off the phone to the DAFM — [they] confirmed they did go out a short while ago and they appreciate the update.”
Homer Scott surrendered his licence. Photo: Healy Racing
Homer Scott surrendered his licence. Photo: Healy Racing
7
On Thursday, Homer Scott told the Sunday Independent: “I’m the best man in Kildare to look after horses.”
Imitation had been put down and taken away by Moyle Animal Collection, a Carlow-based company. Ned Deane of that company confirmed he has disposed of some animals for Scott, but had no recollection of Imitation.
In relation to the death of Positano Princess and the video, Homer Scott said: “I don’t know … why are people saying bad things about me? Like I mean, my horses are all well fed and they’re all well looked after.” He added: “I don’t do anything bad to my animals, all I do is look after them as best I can.”
PK: You don’t bury horses on your land?
HS: I certainly do not. I buried a few horses up till about three years ago, a couple of horses on the land, and they told me never to do it again and I didn’t.
PK: So the video is false?
HS: Sorry, what video is this?
PK: The video of the dead horse that was buried on your land last January … on January 29 [2022]?
HS: I don’t know. Is there many people burying horses on land?
PK: I’ve no idea. I’m asking about your land and what you do.
HS: No, I don’t bury any horses. I had a horse died this week, and the people came and looked at it yesterday.
Darragh Keogh, who works for Scott, said that Department of Agriculture officials had visited the yard before Christmas and claimed they were happy with the improvements that had been made.
We sent an email to Arthur O’Connor with a series of questions, including why officials hadn’t revisited the yard by July 1. He directed us to a spokesperson: “The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine does not comment in relation to ongoing investigations.”
We also put the following to Lynn Hillyer: “On June 30, you were shown a video of a dead mare on Homer’s land. You were also shown the spot where the video was taken, and where the mare was buried. What action did you take please?”
Hillyer did not reply but we received the following from a spokesperson for the IHRB:
“The IHRB carried out an unnotified inspection at Lisheen Stud, Castledermot, Co Kildare, premises of licensed trainer Mr JH Scott, on 30 June 2022. A summary of the findings from the inspection was provided to Mr Scott, after which the IHRB secured the surrendering of Mr Scott’s Trainer’s Licence, thus preventing him from acting in that capacity with immediate effect. The IHRB has subsequently declined to license any training operations on that premises by any individual.
“Enforcement of the Animal Health and Welfare notice served on Mr Scott by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and any actions to be taken under the Animal Health and Welfare Act are a matter for the Department and not the IHRB.”
Asked if there had been a hearing, and if Scott had voluntarily handed in his licence, the spokesperson replied: “One of the most severe sanctions that can be imposed on any trainer by the IHRB is removal of their licence. In light of the circumstances in this case, the IHRB was satisfied to have secured the surrender of Mr Scott’s licence without the necessity of a hearing.”
We searched the IHRB website but there is no record of any sanction imposed on Homer Scott, and no mention of it from the man himself. The 67-year-old still keeps about 50 horses on his land and says: “We look after them seriously well.”
Distressing stuff, makes you wonder if there is a mental health issue at play here.
Thanks for posting the article, mrcombustible.
Thanks for posting the article, mrcombustible.
Thanks for posting mr c What a sickening read and this **** is still allowed to keep Horses?
IHRB refuses to explain why Homer Scott was able to surrender licence without a hearing for welfare allegations
https://www.racingpost.com/news/ireland/ihrb-refuses-to-explain-why-homer-
scott-was-able-to-surrender-licence-without-a-hearing-for-welfare-allegations-aNnCH0g4Ybvc/
^ copy and paste link, stewarts, I've just split it so that it fits onto the page on the old forum.
https://www.racingpost.com/news/ireland/ihrb-refuses-to-explain-why-homer-
scott-was-able-to-surrender-licence-without-a-hearing-for-welfare-allegations-aNnCH0g4Ybvc/
^ copy and paste link, stewarts, I've just split it so that it fits onto the page on the old forum.
Appalling read, shows how ineffective the authorities are.
Post Your Reply
Please login to post a reply.
Wonder
Instance ID: 13539