On the front line with paper towels

Relieved to be racing, Cheltenham are doing what they can to defy coronavirus this week

SPORTS NEWS CORRESPONDENT

If and when the first racegoer goes down with signs of coronavirus at Cheltenham this week, they will most likely stagger in the direction of poor James Powell. The private pharmacist had initially been delighted when his Medicine Man stall and its large signage were awarded prime position overlooking the winner’s enclosure. However, the outbreak of the disease has not been as good for his line of business as might be expected. As well as being warned by the site’s chief doctor that he is on the front line to face anyone infected, he has also hit upon a critical snag: he is already running out of antiviral hand gel.

“We’ve had awful problems getting hold of hand sanitiser,” says Powell, who is in his fifties. “We normally get a lot of it, but we just haven’t been able to get further supplies this year. It’s been depleting and depleting and what I

‘I hope racing can continue as long as possible. For the moment, it’s business as usual’

find really sad is that the price to me as a trader has been going up and up. It was 60p a bottle. It’s now £3. That’s just in the last month. I don’t know if it’s supply and demand or people ripping us off.

“The paracetamol is bad, too. One of the wholesalers I use didn’t have any. I’ve never known anything like it. We’ve been shopping around trying to get enough for this week, with 200-odd thousand people here, there is always a lot of demand.”

The run on essentials has been fuelled in no small part by the festival’s organisers, who have imported more than 300 sanitiser dispensers, now adorning all the entrances across the site.

Crowds, which are expected to dip below the 60,000 average today, will be met by signs promoting hand hygiene at every corner. The festival’s chief medical officer, Dr Sue Smith, is in charge of orchestrating the event’s response to the crisis, and staff working on site yesterday said they were attending daily briefings on being “very proactive, making sure everyone is washing their hands”.

Of most concern to trainers and traders, however, is the potentially devastating loss of business over the coming months. While Cheltenham has received government assurances that racing this week will be uninterrupted, such optimism is fast fading for next month’s Grand National, which insiders believe will be raced behind closed doors, and Badminton Horse Trials in May.

Ben Pauling, whose Global Citizen is a leading chance in the Arkle Challenge Trophy today, wants the sport to stay calm, and try not to think too far ahead. “It’s absolutely brilliant there’s no cancellations this week and I would think Cheltenham are breathing a huge sigh of relief,” he says. “We all are, because who knows how long it will remain.”

As the son of a farmer, he witnessed the devastation to his industry caused by foot-and-mouth disease. “Foot and mouth was very serious,” he added. “I think it shows, let’s take it one step at a time. See how racing gets through. It’s something we’ve got to be careful with, act accordingly, but I hope racing can continue as long as possible. For the moment, until we hear otherwise, it’s business as usual and on we go. I hope that we can remain in that position for a while to come but, obviously, it’s not down to the governing bodies. It will come from higher up. Nothing we can do, to be honest.”

Powell dare not think too far ahead, either, as he has already booked places for his booth at Aintree and Badminton.

“Getting supplies for this week has been difficult and that’s one issue. The other is that there are a lot of businesses that depend on these events. If we cancel everything, there will be a lot of worry. We’ll not claim insurance for this sort of thing. We just have to take it on the chin, like a lot of other businesses.”

Bookmakers have taken huge wagers on the Festival being called off, but yesterday the Government finally guaranteed it would not be cancelling events, this week at least. One Jockey Club source spoke of a “collective sigh of relief ” not just for the Festival but for the county, given 250,000 attend the four days. Gloucestershire estimates the economic impact of the week at £100million.