Racing critics way off track
Virus claims pathetic
Yes, I was desperate to go. Yes, I had waited for it all year. But I’m not stupid and neither are 260,000 other people who went.
Just about everyone in that crowd could give you encyclopedic knowledge of the contenders for the Champion Hurdle or the Gold Cup. But did many have a real clue about world health and viruses?
That’s for experts in medicine and science.
For some folk to have a go at those who attended the Festival is disgraceful. These are the same people who take no interest in racing until an opportunity arises to link some form of negativity towards the game and then they are all on the bandwagon.
Like the whip rule. Or the cruelty brigade who swarm over the Grand National. If these critics had written these articles on the Monday before the Festival started, you’d say, “Okay, fair play, you were right.” The fact is none was.
Every one has been afterwards. Hindsight classic. Pathetic cheap-shot pontificating.
If Boris Johnson or his medical advisers got it wrong, that’s down to them. That’s something they’ll have to live with further down the line when we recall being packed inside Cheltenham Racecourse.
But you can’t blame the folk who went. They hadn’t been given reason not to. If we are told to do what the government says now without any regard for what we think for ourselves, that’s all right.
When we all did what the government said was all right to do three weeks ago, all of a sudden it’s not OK?
Cheltenham chiefs would not have gone ahead with their show if advised otherwise. There’s too much prestige around the track to inf lict that sort of long- term damage to their reputation.
The Grand National is worth fortunes to the game but that’s off, no questions asked, as that’s the guidelines. Don’t forget European football matches took place across the continent on Cheltenham week.
Over 50,000 went to Anfield to see Atletico knock out Liverpool including a big Spanish travelling support. There were 51,000 at Ibrox to see Rangers take on Bayer Leverkusen and more than 2000 Germans were allowed to travel to Glasgow without restriction.
Who is having a go at the punters who went to those games? No one.
Some Irish went home from the Festival on the Thursday night but the situation had changed in that country with schools being closed on that day. Understandable.
That wasn’t happening on the UK mainland at that point, yet apparently racing fans are ignorant and self ish and responsible for carrying this virus out of the
Cotswolds and into various areas of the nation. Racing has done what it has been told. They tried to race behind closed doors when given the all clear to do so but almost immediately they shut those doors completely.
The Irish kept it going for a bit longer. They did everything that was asked of them and beyond.
Over 20,000 people are employed in the game in the Emerald Isle and that was about keeping an industry going.
As far as we know, no one contracted coronavirus during that period. The measures put in place, the social distancing and the self-policing worked. When their government decided to call time on it, they shut down too.
Those who don’t like racing think it’s either about animal cruelty or a reason for folk to gamble.
That is to ignore the fact that the horses are treated with more care than most household pets, the large majority of punters are responsible gamblers and, most importantly, we love the game.
For Kenny Dalglish, we have Red Rum. Golfers have Seve Ballesteros, we’ve got Moscow Flyer. Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo? We’ve got Enable and Tiger Roll.
Coaching geniuses? I’d take Willie Mullins, Gordon Elliott, Paul Nicholls and Nicky Henderson over Jurgen Klopp, Pep Guardiola, Neil Lennon and Steven Gerrard any day. Racing isn’t perfect but no sport is. Yet this one seems to get it in the neck more than most.
Those involved in it and those who love it are treated as fair game.
But the huge majority who have a go are just being ignorant to the facts. And, as the old man used to say, ignorant people are not worth listening to.