If a yard is flu-free it should be able to race

Using a zero-tolerance approach would mean being in lockdown until after the National

If you follow horse racing, you will have lost count of the number of times horses have missed major races because they had a “dirty scope”. What that means is the horse had an endoscope passed up through its nostril and into its windpipe to see what was in there after it had galloped and exerted its lungs. Dirty is a euphemism for mucus, which should not be present in a horse that is healthy and ready to run well.

But racehorse trainers live in an imperfect world. And they are dealing with a racehorse population that is riddled with low-grade respiratory viral, bacterial and fungal infections on a daily basis – and not just during an equine influenza outbreak.

These infections are responsible for even the most talented racehorses running deplorably on a regular basis; career-ending badly for some trainers.

This is the reason trainers spend millions a year on endoscopy and blood testing horses a couple of days before they race to try to ensure, and establish, that the horse is healthy.

But, in spite of all these efforts, trainers do end up, unintentionally, running sick horses, because the symptoms can be subclinical. It has, for instance, been established that Donald Mccain ran a horse last week that later tested positive to equine influenza.

Whether it is the stress of the journey to the racecourse that brings on the sickness, nobody knows, but it is not uncommon for healthy horses to return home sick.

This is an important fact to remember when the argument is put forward that trainers should be the sole arbiters of when horses ought to run during an epidemic. That decision should lie with the appropriate authority, which in this case is the British Horseracing Authority.

Most fair-minded people would agree that the BHA and its veterinary experts made a good call last Thursday when bringing racing to a standstill in an attempt to contain the potential scale of this outbreak. The problem is, where to go from here?

In other words, at what point does a prudent diet turn into a self-harming hunger strike. Because, if the underlying principle is going to be “there will be no further racing until there are no positive flu swabs in any yards”, racing could be shut down until after the Grand National meeting in April.

The entire racehorse population is vaccinated against flu – possibly the wrong strain, but it would appear close enough to stop the worst effects of the virus taking hold.

So, why stand down the entire horse population for flu over a prolonged period, when they have been vaccinated against it, and not for all the other bugs which are endemic in racehorses?

As trainer Nicky Henderson said last week: “There is not a big yard in the country where 100 per cent of the horses are right.” And he was not talking about flu.

Perhaps a better modus operandi for the BHA to utilise would be to adopt the protocol used for tuberculosis outbreaks in cattle.

If a herd tests free of TB, it is free to go to the market. But if a farmer has a reactor – just one of his herd is all that is needed – his herd is grounded.

That may be hard for some trainers, as they may not be able to get their horses swabbed as quickly as others. But it would appear to be a pragmatic way in which to get the racing show back on the road as quickly as possible.

Why stand down all horses for flu and not for the other bugs which are endemic?