“Keep calm and kick on” is the maxim racing appears to have adopted in the face of the threat posed by coronavirus, judging by the views expressed on a busy day here as trainers seized the chance to win some decent prize money without competition from the unbeatable Irish. This was almost certainly one of the last fixtures for some time to be staged in front of a paying audience but the professionals can deal with empty grandstands so long as they are allowed to keep racing their horses for the benefit of TV cameras and off-course betting.
While the formal advice from the government has not yet changed, Downing Street signalled on Friday that mass gatherings are about to be banned, perhaps by next weekend. Only close friends of Kempton would describe Saturday’s attendance as a mass gathering but a larger number attended Uttoxeter for the Midlands Grand National, won by Truckers Lodge for the Paul Nicholls stable.
Nicholls was 150 miles to the south, saddling his runners here, and watched the Uttoxeter race on a big screen by the paddock, cheering: “Go on, Lorc!” as Lorcan Williams drove Truckers Lodge 18 lengths clear. It was a big day for Nicholls, who also had two winners here and reckoned he had cut in half the £300,000 lead in the trainer’s title race which Nicky Henderson had held in the morning.
But will the jumps season be allowed to reach its conclusion next month? “To be honest, you’re asking the wrong person,” Nicholls said. “I’m an expert at training racehorses, I haven’t got a clue about the rest of it. At home we’re trying to be vigilant and use common sense. The horses have still got to be exercised, fed and trained and looked after, whatever happens. You can’t just leave them in the box or turn them out in a field.”
And so long as that remains true, trainers reason, why should they not be allowed to bring their charges to empty racecourses and stage some entertainment for the rest of us, “working from home”. French racing adopted that approach on Friday night, announcing that attendance would be limited to trainers, jockeys, one groom per horse and no more than five media representatives; owners and breeders are specifically forbidden to attend.
British officials stand by their “considering a range of options” line issued on Friday at about the same time as the Gold Cup runners left the Cheltenham paddock. But Monday’s card at Kelso will have to be run behind closed doors in view of the Scottish government’s advice against outdoor gatherings of more than 500 people.
There is no real doubt, however, that the line will have to be changed very soon. “Surely the way forward is to just have racing behind closed doors,” said the trainer Philip Hobbs. “We keep everything going, the turnover going, we keep the horses in training, keep the bookmakers going and there’s money for the government as well. Unless things get absolutely terrible, it has to be the right thing.”
The same attitude was expressed more robustly by Chris Gordon after his On The Slopes scored. “My 92-year-old owner has just said: ‘My God, we’re getting so soft. We should just kick on and get on with it!’”
Hobbs’s friend and rival Nigel Twiston-Davies had a more fatalistic approach. “I haven’t a clue, I’m not bright enough,” he said. “Are we going behind closed doors, are we going to be off? It’s up to the great and the good and we’ll fall into line. If there’s a race to be won, we’ll be there.”
In particular he hopes to be at Aintree on 4 April for a tilt at the Grand National with Bristol De Mai, well beaten in the Gold Cup but said to be in fine form the following morning. “Maybe they didn’t go fast enough for him. It was drying out a lot. He couldn’t bully them all the way and get them at it with his jumping.”
There has been talk for more than a week of the Grand National being run behind closed doors, which would be a blow to the Liverpool hoteliers who would otherwise hope to accommodate tens of thousands of people over the three days of racing. It would also provide an eerie silence behind the commentary if Tiger Roll did win the race for a third time.
One difficulty, which would apply to any racing behind closed doors, lies in the need to generate starting prices when neither bookmakers nor punters are present at the track. Colin Hord, who chairs the Horserace Bettors Forum, said: “At this time we believe there is no alternative to allowing off-course bookmakers to form the starting price. The HBF wish to see a good spread of bookmakers’ prices being used. During this unusual situation, the HBF would monitor the overrounds and inform bettors where we see any issues.”
Horse racing tips
Carlisle
2.00 The Ferry Master 2.30 First Flow
3.05 Lucky Flight 3.35 My Old Gold
(nap) 4.10 Cool Country 4.40 Just A Par
Market Rasen
2.20 Fearless 2.50 Lisronagh Stone
3.25 Dundrum Wood 3.55 Vocaliser
4.30 Derrick D’Anjou (nb) 5.00 Playa Blanca 5.30 Allavina