Fears for Cheltenham as Newcastle is cancelled

Fears that next month's Cheltenham festival will not go ahead continue to rage after the Newcastle meeting scheduled for Monday became the first racing casualty of Britain's foot-and-mouth crisis.

The Newcastle fixture has been called off at the request of the British agriculture ministry after a sixth case of the disease was confirmed on a farm in the North East of England, close to the racecourse.

Alarm at the rapid spread of the virus, which it is now feared started over two weeks ago, centres even more attention on a suspected outbreak at Stroud in Gloucestershire which is less than 30 miles from Cheltenham racecourse.

The Turf Club chief executive Brian Kavanagh admitted the foot-and-mouth threat to racing's most famous festival is now "a serious situation" and the Department of Agriculture hasn't ruled out widespread travel restrictions.

"This is an evolving situation and if it gets bad enough in Britain there could be restrictions on movement generally, not just horses but humans too," a Department of Agriculture spokesman said yesterday.

The British Agriculture Ministry has imposed a ban on livestock being transported but that doesn't include horses and this weekend's race meetings in Britain will go ahead as scheduled.

The confirmed case in the North East of England centred on Ponteland which is eight miles from the Newcastle track and inside the Ministry's 10-mile exclusion zone. A spokesman said: "The only way we would be likely to close a meeting would be if a course fell within an exclusion zone."

However a number of point to points have been called off including the North Down Harriers point to point in Northern Ireland.

Attention is focusing increasingly on the prospects for the Cheltenham festival which starts on March 13th and already the course officials are trying to minimise the danger.

"Every vehicle that comes on to and leaves the racecourse site has its wheels disinfected," a Cheltenham course spokesman said. "We are doing what little we can to halt the spread of infection."

The Department of Agriculture has recommended a series of measures to trainers in Ireland for the transportation of horses and they include the disinfection of transporters, no hay or straw being transported and horseboxes only travelling to and from racecourses.

The ban on the transport of animals to the Republic currently includes cattle, sheep, pigs and goats but a Department spokesman said: "If the situation becomes significantly serious that could come under review. We could have to look at the issue of a possible increased risk created if an animal travels and then comes back to the country."

Fears that the Cheltenham festival could be affected even hit the stock market yesterday. The estimated 30,000 Irish punters who travel to Cheltenham each year help raise a bookmaker turnover of almost £175 million and the foot-and-mouth scare caused shares in Hilton, the leisure group that own Ladbrokes, to fall by two per cent.