Cheltenham hopes fading

The Irish racing community is gearing itself for a prolonged spell of inactivity and there appears to be widespread acceptance that hopes of competing at the Cheltenham Festival are fading fast.

"The immediate future doesn't look good for racing in Ireland," said the Trainers' Association chairman Willie Mullins yesterday as new confirmed cases of foot-and-mouth were reported in England and news of possible suspect cases in Ireland emerged.

Mullins, who has a large team of horses with Cheltenham as their major target, added that there is widespread acceptance among his members for the Minister for Agriculture's emergency measures against the disease which include a request not to travel to the festival.

"No one wants to be a contributor to the spread of this disease and I think the Cheltenham issue is academic anyway because there must be only a slight chance of the Festival going on," Mullins said.

Trainer Edward O'Grady, whose Cheltenham hopes include the opening race favourite Ned Kelly and the Gold Cup hope Nick Dundee, reflected the general mood yesterday when he said: "I feel duty bound as a citizen of this country to honour the Minister's request. I have little doubt that the Minister would like to have seen Irish horses at Cheltenham as much as anyone but he has no other way to go."

O'Grady added: "I'm continuing to train my horses as if we will have a go situation but at the same time I don't expect it to happen. I have to proceed on a positive note."

A statement last evening from Aidan O'Brien's Ballydoyle stable read: "With regard to Istabraq's participation at the Cheltenham Festival we will obviously be complying with the guidelines set down by the Department of Agriculture. It was never our intention to contravene the Minister's guidelines."

Instead of the Cheltenham Festival, attention now seems to be focusing on when racing action will return in Ireland with the more pessimistic speculating there may be no racing in this country before Easter.

The Turf Club chief executive Brian Kavanagh said: "It's hard to put a precise date on when racing might start again and a lot will depend on how long a gap there is between new cases in Britain. The indications are not good at the moment and no one knows whether it might be a week, two weeks or six weeks before racing returns."

However, the racing authorities in Britain continue to be more upbeat about the Cheltenham Festival going ahead and the Cheltenham chief executive Edward Gillespie said yesterday: "It will be a very sad day when an Irish horse can't get to Cheltenham. We will talk with the Irish and we are looking at aeroplanes to provide a sterile way of transporting horses."

Gillespie added: "We are going full steam ahead and we will do everything we can to help the meeting go ahead on March 13th."

The Jockey Club spokesman John Maxse said: "We have every intention of resuming racing on March 7th. With increased safety and codes of practice we hope that we can resume next Wednesday. One of the key reasons for having a break now was to give us the best possible chance of staging the Cheltenham festival."