The government's road map to coming out of lockdown looks
set to delay at return to racing in the UK until June 1, at the earliest.
Horse Racing, like most sports across the world, has been postponed since
mid-March because of the coronavirus pandemic, although there had been hopes a
return to action was on the horizon.
With French racing resuming on Monday and the action still going on in the USA,
the BHA had hoped that a comeback in the UK could happen in the middle of May,
but these plans appear to have been dashed.
After Boris Johnson made an announcement on Sunday regarding lockdown measures,
the Prime Minister has now released a 50-page document entitled ‘Our Plan to
Rebuild: The UK Government's Covid-19 Recovery Strategy'.
It details that there will be no professional sport – even behind closed doors
– in England until at least June 1, meaning racing's doors in the UK will
remain shut for at least another three weeks.
Step two of the road map, which cannot begin any earlier than June 1, includes
“permitting cultural and sporting events to take place behind closed-doors
for broadcast, while avoiding the risk of large-scale social contact”.
