Rachael Blackmore may have rode to the rescue with her ground-breaking Cheltenham Festival and Aintree Grand National successes, but racing is in the headlines for all the wrong reasons once again following Monday night’s startling BBC exposé.

When it rains, it seems to pour in Irish racing with claims that “most, but not all” of the 4,000 racehorses slaughtered in abattoirs since 2019 were trained in Ireland, with many euthanised in an appalling fashion, if the covert footage shown in the documentary is to be believed.

Everyone knows about the equine hotels like JP McManus’s Martinstown Stud which the most prolific horses reside in when their days on the track are over, but this programme painted a less than pretty picture of where the game’s lesser lights finish up.

Allegations of injured horses making the lengthy trip from Ireland to a Swindon abattoir to be euthanised and evidence of thoroughbreds being shot in plain sight of other horses made for particularly grim viewing.

There is plenty of cannon fodder for animal rights activists – many of whom want racing banned – and the reputational damage which it has already suffered this year will take some time to recover from.

The greyhound industry was tarred and feathered after an RTÉ investigation in 2019 and is still reeling, but you can’t help but thinking that Irish racing authorities continue to keep shooting themselves in the foot.

One leading Irish trainer, who wished to remain nameless so as not to give the “bull**** allegations” more legs, scotched the sensationalism of the programme, but he believes it’s essential for racing authorities on either side of the Irish Sea to “be proactive rather than reactive”.

“It’s our turn for a kicking at the minute, we could do without it, but a lot of it we bring on ourselves because our authorities are reactive rather than proactive and they need to be more proactive,” he said of the urgent industry meetings being called in the wake of the programme.

Racing is an old-fashioned industry in many ways and the recent Stephen Mahon case does not paint the Irish racing’s regulators in a good light, with the Galway trainer banned for four years – which is under appeal – having been found in breach of rules in relation to the neglect and proper supervision of 10 racehorses.

One animal had to be put down due to being “catastrophically injured” in a fetlock joint, while another was found to be “emaciated” after April inspections by the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB).

How Mahon was present at Tipperary last Sunday – where he was alleged to have interfered in the post-race sampling of a horse which he previously trained (in his capacity as travelling head lad and authorised representative for fellow Galway trainer Pat Kelly) – is mind-boggling.

It’s often said that a dog is not just for Christmas, it’s for life and horses are the same. How horses are handled from birth to death must be paramount with the duty of care on trainers/owners, as their hands cannot be wiped once careers are over.

This is a sentiment echoed by 12-times British champion jumps trainer Paul Nicholls, who insists that he is “still in charge wherever they go, and we need to know their every move and totally keep tabs on them”.

Many horses are retrained and find other disciplines under the Retraining Of Racehorses programme, but there is always a danger that some horses end up in the wrong hands.

Panorama exposed such gross malpractice and while that is viewed as the minority by those at the coalface of the industry, racing must thread very carefully or it risks suffering damage it may never recover from.