No sport is safe from coronavirus – except horse racing apparently

Widespread sporting cancellations around the globe has left fans with extremely little to look forward to this weekend as the growing coronavirus crisis continues to worsen.

Having been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation in the week, various governing bodies and sporting authorities lined up to postpone or cancel their events not just for the weekend, but for the foreseeable future.

First went the Australian Grand Prix in somewhat bizarre circumstances, quickly followed by The Players Championship at Sawgrass – both cancelled – and as Europe woke up, the full impact quickly revealed itself.

The Champions League and Europa League, Premier League, full English Football League and Scottish football were all suspended for at least two weeks, while England’s upcoming internationals at Wembley against Italy and Denmark went the same way. The expectation is that the resumption of these leagues will not come soon, if at all.

Rugby league wasn’t safe, nor were the Bahrain and Vietnam rounds of the 2020 F1 calendar, while Formula E suspended its current season. Even the Six Nations rugby union match between Wales and Scotland was called off, hours after it was confirmed on. No sport was safe. Except for horse racing.

For the fourth consecutive day, the Cheltenham Festival got underway full steam ahead. From the moment the famous roar went up at 1pm, coronavirus fears were banished from the mind and instead talk of odds, form and insider tips filled the Gloucestershire air. As Goshen sent Jamie Moore tumbling to the turf at the last having built an insurmountable lead, a worldwide pandemic was the last thing on anyone’s mind – and that was the big problem.

No one at Cheltenham appears to be aware of the grave circumstances that the nation finds itself in, given there was somehow a justification to allow 60,000 racegoers to cram into the grandstands in close proximity. By the time the last drops of Guinness were sloshed down following the 5:30 Jockeys’ Handicap Hurdle, no one could give a hoot about the developing crisis – hand sanitiser or no hand sanitiser.

It takes a strong, brave head to speak out in these circumstances, which Barry Geraghty did his best to before the final day’s action by admitting the situation was serious and it had triggered great concern among those inside the jockeys’ room. Yet what they really needed was a Lewis Hamilton, or a Rory McIlroy, or just someone strong enough to peek their head above the parapet and notice that if the rest of the world is not doing this, why are we?

McIlroy summed it up best on Thursday night when he was asked about the PGA Tour’s initial decision to ban fans from Sawgrass for the rest of the weekend.

“It’s a scary time, and I think that the Tour have made a step in the right direction and I think we just have to play it by ear and take it day by day, and as someone said to me yesterday, today’s over-reaction could look like tomorrow’s under-reaction.”

Will The Jockey Club look back on Cheltenham next week and think they made the right decision, or will they shudder in horror at what they exposed people too? They correctly took measures to try and fight Covid-19 by installing hand sanitisers, pharmacy stalls and health advisors, but that advice was irrelevant by the time the Festival started given how swiftly the crisis developed. On Friday the total number of confirmed cases went up by 208, while in Italy the death toll increased by 250 to 1,266. It will get worse.

Cheltenham will point to the fact that there has not been a single confirmed case from within the Festival, but does the result outweigh the risk? There will be more than 150,000 racegoers harbouring concerns over the next few days watching for any little sign of the virus symptoms, a nervous wait that no one wants to go through.

At the end of the day, sport has to realise that it is not worth it, no matter what the government advice. As McIlroy so eloquently put it, today’s over-reaction can become tomorrow’s under-reaction in a matter of hours.