Glimmer of hope for Irish as Cheltenham festival is postponed

The Cheltenham festival is off and a glimmer of hope has been given that Irish-trained horses may yet get the chance to travel to the UK in April.

The change in the clause of a British Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food directive which means that no livestock can have been on a racetrack for 28 days is "a disaster" for the Cheltenham authorities but not for Irish racing professionals.

The Irish Racehorse Trainers Association Chairman Willie Mullins said: "It must give the Irish contingent a better chance of getting there. Our chances are certainly better than they were."

Mullins had called a final and definitive halt to any last ditch moves to secure a relaxation of the Government's advice on non-travel to the UK yesterday evening. Irish horses such as the Smurfit Champion Hurdle favourite Istabraq would not have been even declared at today's five-day confirmation stage.

However, hours later the Cheltenham authorities made the announcement that they had to postpone the festival to April. The track's April 18th-19th fixtures had always been spoken of as a contingency plan for the festival if the worst came to the worst and now it has.

The Cheltenham chief executive Edward Gillespie said: "We've moved the whole thing to April. It's unbelievable but if you live by risk assessors and veterinary evidence you have to play by the rules."

Gillespie added: "This is a most unexpected and dreadful blow for everyone who has been preparing their horses and planning their visit to Cheltenham next week.

"I know this will be an enormous disappointment to the entire racing community.

"But it was of paramount importance that the meeting would only go ahead with the full compliance of the instructions. We had no option but to abide by this ruling."

Gillespie apologised to the thousands of people who would be inconvenienced by the situation, including the 150,000 racegoers who have booked tickets for the festival.

The original Ministry directive in Britain was that no livestock could be on a racecourse, or an area accessible to the public, within the previous 14 days or else a race fixture could not go ahead. However, that time limit has now been doubled. Thursday of next week, Tote Gold Cup day, would just have scraped by that time limit but the racing powers have decided to move the whole festival.

The British Horseracing Board (BHB) described it as "a serious blow to racing".

The last time part of the March festival was transferred to April was in 1978 when the Gold Cup was originally called off due to bad weather and the John Francome ridden Midnight Court won steeplechasing's blue riband event a month later.

Attention is now sure to revert back to the Minister for Agriculture Joe Walsh who has maintained the Government line that there will be no relaxation of the ban on racing in Ireland or on the movement of horses to Britain until at least 30 days after the last confirmed foot-and-mouth outbreak in Britain.

From today there are 41 days until April 18th which is a likely date for the postponed festival although no definite confirmation of that was available last night.

However, yesterday was a black day for those fighting the foot-and-mouth virus in Britain with 15 new outbreaks. BHB secretary-general Tristram Ricketts said: "The postponement of the festival is a serious blow to racing, but BHB will work closely with Cheltenham's executive to plan the restaging of the event at a practicable time in April."

Leading English trainer Nicky Henderson described the cancellation of the showpiece event as "a bitter blow." He added: "The horses were prepared for next week. How do we take them off the boil and bring them back? But it's our job to do that."

Bookmakers William Hill said: "With regard to the betting, we are not in a position to make a decision over the validity of existing ante-post bets until we are clear what will happen with the races."