Race meeting off due to foot-and-mouth outbreak

Monday's meeting at Newcastle has been cancelled due to the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain.

The meeting was today abandoned at the request of the British Ministry for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, the department responsible for containing the outbreak.

A case of the disease was today confirmed in cattle at Ponteland, Northumberland. The racecourse at Newcastle falls inside the 10-mile exclusion zone established by the British government and as a result had to be called off.

The cancellation will be bad news to the thousands of Irish punters getting ready for Cheltenham in just over two weeks time. The racing calendar showpiece is not believed to be under threat at present but a case is still under investigation at Stroud, approximately 27miles from the course.

Horses themselves cannot be infected by the disease but can carry it if they come into contact with affected livestock.Another major fear is that the disease may be spread on horse boxes, vehicles and even clothing of the 175,000 strong crowdexpected at the Cheltenham festival.

But provided they do not fall within exclusion zones, all meetings in the near-future are set to go ahead, although officials are continuing to monitor the situation.

Jockey Club press officer, John Maxse, explained: "Horses are not considered livestock so racing will continue, all the meetings tomorrow are on.

"I think about half a dozen point-to-points have been called off, I think it's really landowners and farmers concerned about bringing in outside people on to their land and they just don't want to take that risk.

"Racecourses are slightly different because the only job for a racecourses is to act as a racecourse. The majority of horses in racing yards are in 'racing yards'. So there's not such a mix of livestock as you'd get in a point-to-point field.

"I'm very confident that both Cheltenham and Aintree will be able to go ahead as planned." - Additional Reporting PA