Racing's biggest festival put back to April

The foot-and-mouth crisis last night finally claimed the Cheltenham Festival. The meeting, which was due to start on Tuesday, will now be run in April.

The announcement came at the end of a day when 15 new outbreaks of the disease were confirmed in Britain. However, it is a change in the clause of a British Ministry of Agriculture directive which has forced the postponement of the festival.

The British Ministry of Agriculture decided that sheep which had been grazing on the in-field of the racecourse at Cheltenham infringed new veterinary guidelines which state that farm animals now have to be absent from such sites for at least 28 days.

The previous guidelines had stated that no livestock could have been on a racecourse or in an area accessible to the public within the previous 14 days.

That period has now been doubled and although next Thursday, for which the Tote Gold Cup had been scheduled, would have scraped past the time limit, the decision was taken last night to postpone the entire meeting.

The announcement is good news for Irish trainers and owners, who earlier in the day had ruled out any last chance of Irish horses being allowed to travel and run at jump racing's biggest meeting of the year.

Last night, the chairman of the Irish Racehorse Trainers' Association, Mr Willie Mullins, said: "It gives Irish horses a chance to make the April meeting."

However, the Cheltenham chief executive, Mr Edward Gillespie, described the postponement as "a most unexpected and dreadful blow for everyone who has been preparing their horses and planning to visit Cheltenham next week".

Over 100,000 spectators were expected at the three-day festival and the vast majority of the usual 15,000 Irish racing fans were also expected to attend in spite of the Irish Government's request that nobody should travel to the UK unless absolutely necessary.

As livestock on moorland near the first confirmed outbreak on Dartmoor were prepared for slaughter yesterday, 15 new cases of foot-and-mouth were confirmed across Britain, bringing the total to 96.

New cases of foot-and-mouth were found on farms at Hawes in north Yorkshire, Queensbury in west Yorkshire and Hilton in Derbyshire. Outbreaks were also confirmed at Arthuret in Cumbria and at Ruthwell in Dumfries and Galloway.

In the House of Commons, the Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, said he hoped he could announce "further relaxations" of restrictions on the movement of livestock in the coming weeks, such as granting special licences to allow hill sheep in non-infected areas to be sent for slaughter.