To the relief of livestock farmers in the district, organisers of the Cheltenham Festival have announced that it will be postponed for a month. The three-day festival, which grosses around £25m with course bookies and is traditionally the highlight of the horseracing year, was due to start on 13 March.
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Fears over the spread of foot and mouth disease to the rural area led organisers to reschedule for the 17-19 April. Organisers explained that sheep had been grazing on the racecourse during the last 28 days, and new guidelines by the MAFF to control the spread of the highly contagious disease mean that the event could not now proceed.
The event attracts over 150,000 visitors every year, and fears over the spread of foot and mouth had already meant that Irish trainers withdrew their horses from races at Cheltenham. French trainers were also considering the same move.
Peter McNeill, commercial manager of the racecourse, had revealed before the suspension that moving the date of the event to April would cause severe financial implications and problems for visitors. Elsewhere in the racing world, voices expressed their disappointment. Mick Fitzgerald, the jockey who won the Cheltenham Gold Cup in 1999 with See More Business, revealed that he is “absolutely gutted” the festival has been postponed.
A suspected case was reported at a farm in Lambourn yesterday, 50 miles from Cheltenham.
