French racing’s potential return seen as positive by Horse Racing Ireland

Increasing confidence about a potential resumption of racing in France next month has been described as “positive” by officials at Horse Racing Ireland (HRI).

Edouard de Rothschild, the president of French racing’s governing body, France Galop, said after meeting government ministers on Tuesday that he was “not pessimistic about the resumption of the closed-door races on May 11th.”

That is the date of a potential easing of national restrictions in France’s fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. A ban on large public events remains there until at least July 11th.

Racing stopped in France on St Patrick’s Day, 10 days before it also ground to a halt in Ireland.

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Prior to that France had been the first major jurisdiction in Europe to race behind closed doors. Ten fixtures were held behind closed doors in Ireland before sporting events were cancelled here too on March 27th.

A France Galop statement later added: “Representatives of the public authorities and of the industry have given themselves 48 hours to lay down the terms of an agreement which will allow the horse racing industry to deal with and overcome the impact of the current health crisis.”

With plans already in place for a restricted programme of racing to begin in Germany on May 1st the signs from France are seen as more encouragement for HRI, although it once again stressed any resumption here will be determined by Government giving a green light.

"The fact some countries have kept racing and some countries are now actively moving towards a resumption phase has to be positive," said HRI chief executive Brian Kavanagh on Tuesday.

“If racing were to resume in other countries that would definitely be a positive. [But] we’ve based our decisions throughout with the national situation first.”

The Irish Government has indicated there may be an ease of some restrictions currently in place due to the coronavirus emergency at the next deadline date of May 5th.

Any resumption of racing though is likely to be behind closed doors after reports that the Government plan to ban mass gatherings of over 5,000 people until September.

HRI’s position is that the sport here should remain “racing ready”. A month of Flat racing is scheduled to take place if, or when, Government says it is okay to resume. The first Classics of the 2020 season, the Irish 2,000 and 1,000 Guineas, are still scheduled to take place on May 23rd-24th.

The Irish Trainers’ Association has said it is optimistic to believe racing here might start again before June 1st. Kavanagh said the coming week will be crucial in determining any possible resumption date.

A number of different programming scenarios are ready to be implemented to revamp the decimated 2020 fixture list, although enabling the Guineas to be run on time would have far-reaching implications.

“The next week is critical. In an ideal world we would have trials before the Guineas and, again, that depends on the situation regarding a resumption,” Kavanagh said.

“If there was a resumption soon after May 4th there’s time for a trial for those who want it.

“You would need a week to 10 days to get a resumption going and ideally you’d want a couple of weeks before you want to run Group One races.

“But there is value in holding the Group One dates. You have much less of an impact on the fixture thereafter.”

Whether or not the three Group One races over the Curragh’s Guineas Festival weekend will have international raiders is unclear.

Although breeding stock is allowed move between countries under strict regulations because they fall under an animal-production category, restrictions on racehorses travelling could be a condition of the sport resuming in any of Europe’s major racing jurisdictions.

Kavanagh, who is also chairman of the European Pattern Committee, said any resumption of racing here will be “domestic only” at the start. However he didn’t rule out how future top-flight races might be different.

“We would have to look at the details of that. There has been some movement of mares under strict protocol.

“Whether you could add protocols to allow racehorses move, or for certain categories of race, or something like that, remains to be seen.

“It will certainly be domestic only for the bulk of the race programme at the start. Whether that will apply by the time we get to Group One racing is something we’re still working on. Again, we will be guided entirely on that by the medical authorities,” he said.

Group One races restricted to domestic runners would have serious implications for the European Pattern system and reverberate through to the breeding sector as well.

Earlier this month, Ireland’s champion trainer, Aidan O’Brien, whose Ballydoyle operation would be seriously affected by any travel restrictions for big races, outlined his concerns.

“The whole Pattern race system is all based on competition between all the countries and always has been,” he said

“We support races all over Europe all the time I think for the Pattern Committee, and the races, it’s probably vital that it stays open.”