Morgan

My name is Morgan, and they’re working me pretty hard today. They work me pretty hard most days. I run around one race a month, and have to do lots of training. I’m a jumps horse, so clearing hurdles and fences takes a lot out of me. 

I’m seven years old now, barely an adult but I’ve been with this trainer, Gordon Elliott, for a couple of years now, and life isn’t easy. Besides the training and the racing, there’s the travel – all over Ireland for different races. And when I’m not being ridden, I’m usually stuck indoors, alone. Life in racing is bleak. 

Today I’m in training again but something doesn’t feel right. My muscles feel weak under my skin and my breath doesn’t flow like it should. I collapse. It hurts. It really hurts. And then it doesn’t hurt anymore and the world goes black. 

Afterwards, as my lifeless body lay on the gallops, there are no tears from the people who know me, who see me every day, who were supposed to be looking after me. Elliott climbs on top of me. He poses for a picture on my corpse. He smiles. He poses. Everyone laughs. 

They say they treat us like kings. It isn’t true. They treat us like slaves. They abuse our bodies in life and dishonour them in death. We are thrown away like broken pieces of equipment. We mean nothing to them. 

A year and a half after it was taken that photo got leaked. Elliott got in some trouble. For a while.  He was banned for 6 months and missed a couple of lucrative races. I missed the rest of my life. 

Today Elliott is back training and running horses at prestigious events. Last year he ran more horses than any other trainer, finished second in the trainers’ championships, and won nearly €5 million in prize money.  

Also last year as many horses were confirmed to have died in his care as the number of years I was alive, and the number of years since I’ve been dead – seven. Those of us who died so that Elliott and his friends could split that prize fund are barely memories in the minds of those that knew us. 

My name was Morgan. I was someone.