I must admit to being frustrated by Monday’s news that racing won’t resume until June 1st at the earliest, it came as a bit of a kick in the teeth.
We’d seen provisional schedules for races published, potential start dates mooted and now it’s back to playing the waiting game.
The frustration is that I feel as an industry we’ve covered every corner, done everything we can to follow the guidelines and make sure the sport is ready.
We were told on Sunday night to go back to work – and then a day later we couldn’t. We’re not looking for special treatment but given the choice of what’s safer healthwise I’m sure most people would choose racing behind closed doors at Newcastle over commuting on the tube in London.
We’re still preparing the horses at home and will be ready as soon as we’re needed. I didn’t gallop the older horses today – they didn’t need it – but the two-year-olds are stepping up. Initial indications were that wouldn’t be any juvenile races when we first started back but then 12 appeared in the programme.
It’s like a chef in a kitchen, preparing the food but not having a restaurant to serve it in.
It looks as if all sport is being treated on the same level which to me at least seems unfair. We’re not a contact sport and if we get back at the same time as football and even rugby it would strike me as though we didn’t manage to get that point across to government or quite possibly they simply haven’t had time to sit down and think about it.
