Sandown keen to race despite crisis

Racing looks set to take place at Sandown on Friday and Saturday next week.  

But the meeting is likely to take place in a "slightly strange" atmosphere, according to clerk of the course Andrew Cooper.

Fixtures planned for next Wednesday and Thursday at Bangor, Carlisle, Catterick, Towcester and Wincanton have been abandoned because of the foot-and-mouth crisis.

Those in favour of a re-start for British racing will be looking towards Sandown's two-day fixture to provide a decent standard of jumps racing for those who want it.

But with some trainers and owners refusing to send out runners until the ever-increasing outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease have been brought under control, Cooper admitted that should the meeting go ahead, he is uncertain just how popular it will be.

"Our plan and our intention is for the meeting to go ahead," he said.

"We only received the guidelines late on Friday afternoon but having digested them, nothing outlined is going to be impossible to achieve.

"I can totally understand that for some racecourses it is a hard decision to make but if the governing body of our sport and all its experts tell us that with these precautions, we can stage racing with a negligible risk of spreading the disease then we must race."

Cooper admitted that given the poor weather over the winter, Sandown were keen from a financial point of view to get the meeting on but said that the course had been put under no pressure to race by the authorities.