Riaan

My name is Riaan, and I don’t come across the sea very often. They usually race me in Ireland, but sometimes they bring me here. I don’t like it, and I didn’t usually finish races in the UK. But today I have to run at Market Rasen, I wonder if I’ll see the finish today. 

I’m trained by a man called Gordon Elliott. I’ve been in his yard for years now – horses come and go from there a lot. Some are loaded for racing and never come back. Some die right here. A few years ago, before I arrived, a horse called Morgan died of a heart aneurysm here – he was at seven years old. Elliot climbed on his dead body and posed for a photo. He served only a 6-month suspension and since that day dozens of horses have left for races and not come back to the yard. More have died young in his care. 

Today I can tell I’m not doing well from the start. I run with the herd, like my instinct tells me to, but they always try to get me to run out in front. I try; I always try. But I fall. It’s the first time I’ve fallen in a race, and I can already tell it’s going to be the last. I can hear the hooves of the herd thundering away from me as I cling to my last breaths. 

They tell us we’ll be treated like royalty, but there have been over 100 of us killed in racing in the UK so far this year, and over 3,000 of us in less than 20 years. And as long as racing horses is allowed to continue there will be more of us.  

Some of us die in front of a crowd, most of us die when nobody’s looking. Nobody even knows most of our names. 

But my name was Riaan. I was someone.