Cheltenham 2020 Thread

Good column from Richard Forristral in the RP

A year on from the equine flu outbreak that shut down racing in Britain for a week, some have speculated that next month's Cheltenham Festival might yet face a more legitimate threat due to the spread of the coronavirus.

When the details emerged in the middle of February 2019 about a limited number of confirmed equine flu cases, this column argued the BHA's unilateral response smacked of a knee-jerk overreaction that illustrated a lamentable misunderstanding of a virus that is endemic in the horse community in this part of the world.

The Irish Equine Centre, the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board, the French authorities and Peter Ramzan of Rossdales veterinary practice in Newmarket were among those who relayed a far more judicious and informed message in sync with those who were accustomed to handling equine flu outbreaks on the ground.

Taking my cue from those – and other – sources, my interpretation of the BHA's management of the issue was that it had caused unnecessary disruption and panic.

The coronavirus poses an altogether different hazard to human life so it would be impossible to be quite so strident if it gets to the point that the BHA is advised that having in excess of a quarter of a million people converge on Prestbury Park over a four-day period represents an unnecessary risk.

Clearly, Covid-19 is still spreading, and its arrival at our back door in Europe inevitably makes it feel a more urgent and concerning issue. A decline in diagnoses in China suggests the virus has peaked there and hopefully the Olympics will be able to go ahead in Tokyo this summer.

On top of 2,715 reported coronavirus-related fatalities in China, there have been deaths in France and Italy. Ireland's Six Nations clash with Italy that is fixed for Dublin on March 7 has been postponed after the minister for health Simon Harris met with the Irish Rugby Football Union.

There is a perceptible logic to that decision, just as there is to the postponements of some Serie A games and Inter Milan's Europa League clash with Ludogorets being played behind closed doors.

Once central government intervenes, sporting bodies must toe the line, and when the foot-and-mouth crisis struck in 2001 the postponement of the Six Nations preceded the eventual cancellation of the Cheltenham Festival.

The BHA is taking a watching brief and will be advised by parliament in Westminster and, for all that our sport's four days in March mean everything to us, in the greater scheme of things they are an irrelevance.

It seems there is growing concern that a further escalation in the outbreak could leave the fixture in peril, but that feels extremely premature to me and it's worth providing a bit of context.

For starters, the vast majority of racegoers who will descend on Cheltenham will travel from Britain and Ireland. So far, there have been a grand total of 13 cases diagnosed in Britain and still none in Ireland.

Scaremongering is par for the course when these outbreaks occur, and the lack of a suitable Covid-19 vaccine obviously differentiates the virus from regular influenza. Moreover, it should be stressed that, in contrast to having had some first-hand experience of dealing with equine flu in the past and having access to well-placed sources last year, this is a topic on which I have zero authority. Research and rationality are my only instruments.

First off, reliable online sources suggest the Covid-19 fatality rate is between one and two per cent at worst, so it is roughly as virulent as common flu, which, it should be noted, causes around half a million deaths globally every year. Over 80 per cent of those diagnosed with the Covid-19 strain suffer only mild symptoms.

Perhaps crucially, the World Health Organisation appears some way off labelling the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, which is what the H1N1 strain, or swine flu as it is better-known, was categorised as in 2009. Swine flu was reported to have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide in the first 12 months of it becoming the planet's first flu pandemic in 40 years. It struck Britain after Cheltenham and Aintree's spring festivals but never threatened racing's major summer events.

Sars is another strain of coronavirus that also originated in China and still circulates to this day. It had a far more lethal fatality rate of ten per cent when it became endemic in 2003 but, again, racing carried on.

With that all in mind, it is difficult to make a cogent case for the Cheltenham Festival being in grave danger of not getting under way as scheduled on March 10, and the suggestion it might even take place behind closed doors hardly merits broaching. That would be a hollow and empty experience completely at odds with the festival's very essence.

In this day and age social media, for all its benefits during a crisis, also serves to heighten the extent of a threat like this and provokes a degree of panic. That is not to suggest this isn't an extremely serious issue, but you would like to think we are a long way from Cheltenham being in any real danger.

Apart from the 20 Premier League fixtures scheduled in the meantime, surely the round-of-16 Champions League fixtures that also begin on March 10 and will lure players and fans from so many European countries all around the continent represent a more pressing risk of contagion.

Likewise, a couple of million people ride the tube in London each day, so as long as cosmopolitan transport networks like that can function in major urban areas Prestbury Park's more agrarian gathering can stand its ground.

Around one million passengers travel through British airports on a daily basis, and Dr Jennifer Rohn, a senior biologist at University College, London, said this week: "In this day and age, all you need is one person at an airport, and you can infect the whole world."