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Meaning start of flat will be delayed.
Notable meetings confirmed to be cancelled:
Lincoln meeting
Grand National
Jump finale
Craven meeting
Greenham stakes
Sandown Classic Trials
All weather finals dayEven guineas festival and Derby in doubt
The authorities had little choice. It is not practical to race behind closed doors and the sight of ambulances tied up at a racecourse during a health emergency would not have been a good look for racing.
Well, that’s just answered my question on the other thread, I just couldn’t see how it could logically continue. I think the BHA needs to work out quickly how the season can be delayed and which meetings will have to be dropped, what happens in that case etc and announce that the season will start from June 2nd or July 2nd with the 2000 Guineas festival, something like this. (subject obviously to current situation). Give everyone connected something to plan on and focus too.
Obviously the right decision but as with other sports, there seems no possible chance of it restarting for many a month.
I wonder if I’ll see a single ball bowled in the forthcoming cricket season?
Mike
Not sure what exactly is ‘many a month’ but it sounds a lot Mike! I don’t see any reason why it can’t start June 2nd or July 2nd behind closed doors quite possibly, but at least we can run it. China is getting back to normal now, 3 months of disruption, we should just follow that pattern. It’s about to get a whole lot worse, then flatten out and we should resemble something back to normal by June/July. I don’t see any reason why we can’t start planning for that to happen now. There is no way in the world the Guineas will go ahead on May 2nd. No way.
I love all your speculations about meetings only getting delayed and so on. In about 10 days time the picture will be a lot clearer and people will understand that this will become the Flat season that never was. It’s as simple as that….. The shutdown won’t be a matter of weeks only, it will easily take 6-8 months or even longer until everybody has recovered.
What do people think now? That horses and trainers are at home and just preparing for the turf meetings to start? It won’t be that easy, you’ll be lacking stable staff, jockeys, maybe even vets and the chances to move horses from one stable to another or from one track to another.
No one will die from one Flat season being (almost) entirely cancelled. The long-term goal is to restore the situation we had in the past years where people, horses, athletes could move without risks or restrictions from one location to the next. This won’t happen as fast as the bookies want it, so let’s be patient and concentrate on other things outside the racing world.
Agreed Ruby. Total speculation by everybody. Who knows if it’ll be May 2nd, June 2nd, July 2nd or May 2nd 2021. The BHA have took the optimistic approach in cancelling until the end of April hoping this thing will clear up but will probably have to delay further. Whether when Racing re-starts this will be behind closed doors and then only smaller meetings who knows? I can’t see the Guineas, Derby/Oaks or Royal Ascot going ahead as planned but again this is pure speculation.
We will all miss Racing, some more than others, but I think it’s for the best that this is suspended for the forseeable future. We will just have to see how this pans out. Hopefully all those involved in employment within the industry will get the support required.
Agree, there is no chance of racing starting again on 1st May.
Sports fans had better start preparing for a summer without any sport. Cannot see Wimbledon or the Open Golf going ahead.
I do not like to say it but Cheltenham should probably have been cancelled as well. At least we had four great days racing to remember during these lean times but I fear it is going to look like an own goal and PR disaster.
It was a very decent Festival with a lot of horses (mostly Irish) being perfectly prepared for those four days. That much preparation had to be rewarded somehow, but I guess the horses would have performed exactly the same, WITHOUT spectators. Cant’t imagine Al Boum Photo having underperformed without his fans. But I’m also hoping that this wasn’t something like an own goal for NH Racing.
One horse who may have performed better without spectators was Goshen who many believed was spooked by the crowd.
It will be a shame if classics are cancelled this year. Pinatubo, wont get a chance to win triple crown
They can repeat this flat season 20 times and Pinatubo wouldn’t win the triple crown Austin!
Apparently he doesn’t like his fans….- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.