It was with increasing discomfort that we have followed the continuation of the Cheltenham Festival this week.  That is no criticism of the Irish trainers, jockeys and stable staff who have been working through what is to them the Olympic Games of the sport.

Neither really is it a harsh criticism of those who have travelled and stayed.  When you really want to do something it can make you blind to the reasons why it might not be your best course of action.

The sense of rapidly gathering seriousness and need to act here has not been echoed in Britain where the Government’s medical advisors look as though they are on the same page as the rest of the world in terms of delaying and ‘flattening’ the impact of CoronaVirus, but they are of a view that closing schools and ending mass gatherings will only have minimal impact.

They may be right and we are far from qualified but there is a sense that the social cohesion which looks essential in terms of psychological, and perhaps critical in terms of infection control is best served by the action we are taking here.

Simon Coveney, who as Minister of Agriculture was very much aware of the needs and concerns of the racing industry said last night that if the Festival had been on Irish soil that it would not have gone ahead.

On the same programme, Dr Pete Lunn of the ESRI spoke passionately about the importance of collective action.  He is an eminent expert in behavioural science and has also been involved in many sporting projects down the years.

His words and they are worth repeating, were as follows:

“We have to understand why a particular strategy is important to us collectively.  The problem is that one individual’s action affects all of us.  If I don’t wash my hands enough today, I place you at risk.  If you go out and panic buy today you make it harder for me and everyone else to live our lives as best as normal.  If I start to experience symptoms and I don’t make contact with my GP I place everyone else at risk. All of our behaviour affects all the rest of us and the chances of the rest of us catching the disease.”

Powerful words that will hopefully have an impact and which should be repeated as often as possible.

In the case of those returning from Cheltenham, and from Anfield and from any other mass gatherings there should be a real sense of responsibility to themselves, their families, their friends and especially to the 20 per cent of us for whom this virus could cause serious health problems and even death, to self isolate themselves on their return.

If that seems extreme then so too is shutting down every form of sport, cancelling the St Patrick’s Day Parade and closing our schools.

Everything we do as individuals in a time of crisis impacts on everyone.

This is not extreme, this is a taking of personal responsibility to do the right thing, even if it is not the easiest thing.

As things stand this morning, the final day of the Festival will go ahead.  It will produce the moments of a lifetime for those who win the races and that is a great thing for them.

I have been closely involved with Cheltenham over many years and it has a special place in my sporting consciousness. It pains me to say it but the optics and the commentary here as to how it has continued has been unequivocal.

Watching events unfold this afternoon will cause real anger amongst many people.  Some of that will be a degree of reverse snobbery, but much of it will be right.  This is something that we are all in together.  Those returning from the mass gatherings need to make sure that they do what they can to make sure that their enjoyment does not have a terrible impact on those that they might impact upon their return.

Once again there is no blame here.  People are fully entitled to have gone and chose to go when the collective mindset was in a different place.  Now they need to do the right thing.

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Bulmers are the main sponsor of the Festival and the feature Magners Gold cup which runs under that brand name as that is what Bulmers is known as in Britain.

The three other sponsors on today’s card are JCB, Albert Bartlett who are a major potato grower and Randox Health who ironically are one of the lead companies seeking to develop healthcare strategies to get us through the pandemic.
Our guess is that this will not be serving as a staff day out for the team based in Northern Ireland.

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The crowd yesterday unbelievably rose again to 65,218.  That was marginally down on last year’s record attendance of 67,821 but in the circumstances…

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Barry Geraghty, JP McManus and Gordon Elliot lead the Jockey’s Owners and Trainers title races.
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Ireland had a good day and now leads the Prestbury cup with 11 wins to Britain’s nine and France’s one win.

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Each day this week we have given selections across the races.  We have had limited success with only one winner and a hatful of placed horse.  Sadly our heart is not in it for today.  Cheltenham will be back next year, please God when the world has returned to normal. With a heavy heart though we’ll pass on watching today.

 




Image Credit: Sport for Business