Coronavirus: Horseracing plans to get sport up and running despite COVID-19 disruption

Horseracing’s governing body has drawn up detailed plans for the sport to make a return with unprecedented restrictions, which would see jockeys and officials living in quarantine at racecourses.

There have been no race meetings anywhere in the UK since 17 March, but the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) has come up with a radical proposal that could see racing resume, if the government and its scientific advisers back it.

Phase one of the plan would see racing take place behind closed doors at a small number of racecourses and with jockeys, officials and staff all living on site, effectively in quarantine, to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Horses would be brought in and out each day, with fields limited to 12 horses per race.

Twenty-time champion jockey Sir Anthony McCoy told Sky News: I would never, ever have thought something like this could have happened, but if it was our only option at the moment, then why not?

“With the right government and medical guidelines we can get it back in a restricted capacity and hopefully get it going again.

“If it was a possibility and our only possibility, then it’s worth making that step.

“We all know there are a lot more important things happening in the world at the moment, but at some stage we need to make that positive step, as safely as we can.”

Racing is worth £4bn a year to the UK economy and directly employs 18,000 people.

If the COVID-19 shutdown were to continue to the end of June it would see the industry suffer a predicted loss of £193m.

Trainer Ed Walker is preparing for a busy summer of flat racing at his Kingsdown stables in Lambourn, where 30 staff look after 80 horses. But it’s impossible to plan when there are currently so many unknowns.

“A lot of owners will want their horses out of training, totally understandably, if there’s no racing on the horizon,” he told Sky News.

“They are not going to want to pay £2,500 per horse per month in training fees, just for the sake of it.

That will result in empty stables, losing staff, furloughing staff. Disaster, really.”

Merrick Francis, son of the legendary racing thriller writer Dick Francis, runs Lambourn Racehorse Transport taking horses to and from racecourses.

His business has dropped dramatically from up to eight jobs a day to just one, if he’s lucky.

He said: “Thankfully we are still taking mares to stud farms in Ireland and France, with tight protocols and masses of paperwork, but at least the bloodstock side of racing is still moving.”

No solid decision has been taken yet, but the BHA’s view is that when the government and its advisers say it’s safe to do so, British racing will be ready.

(c) Sky News 2020: Coronavirus: Horseracing plans to get sport up and running despite COVID-19 disruption