TRAINERS CALL FOR A BHA RULING RETHINK
In association with
LUCINDA RUSSELL yesterday led the call for the British Horseracing Authority to reconsider its move to suspend racing until 1 May as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
The BHA ruling, made on Tuesday, came 24 hours before its counterparts at Horse Racing Ireland decided to allow one meeting per day to take place behind closed doors.
Urging a rethink, Russell (right), Scotland’s leading trainer and a Grand National winner with One For Arthur in 2017, said: “The BHA has done an awful lot of good work when it comes to supporting sectors across the industry, but I think they have jumped the gun.
“One meeting behind closed doors in the north one day, then another in the midlands and another in the south would have kept things going — and I don’t see why we couldn’t have done that.”
Russell’s views received backing from compatriot Nick Alexander, who described the decision to cancel fixtures — made to ease the pressure on emergency services rather than to stop the spread of COVID-19 — as
“premature”. “My own feeling is that so many sectors of the economy have been decimated that any sector that can be kept going should be kept going,” said Alexander.
“I think we should have kept it going a bit longer — having shut it down, it’s hard to get it back going again.” Middleham handler Ben Haslam mooted the idea of one card of 10 to 12 races per week, adding: “Without question there are going to be casualties among staff and among trainers.”