Badminton winner Paulank Brockagh Retires – Covid-19 shows no sign of doing the same

The news for this and the past several weeks has been all about the Covid19 and this week is no exception. However, the British Government have now announced some relaxing of the regulations yesterday, none of which really help the beleagued equestrian world.

Before we discuss they Corona Virus situation, we have to pay respect to Badminton Horse Trials Winner of 2014, Paulank Brockagh ridden by Australian Sam Griffiths has been retired to the paddocks at his owners place in Ireland. Paulank Brockagh was to have competed last week at his sixth Badminton as his last hurrah before retirement anyway said Sam Griffiths.

Prime Minister Johnson has stipulated that there can be no professional sport in the UK before June 1^st, which kills any hope of the BHA starting racing later in May as they originally wanted. Presumably, even behind closed doors, which is another stipulation, provided the date is not put back again because of further and increased cases coming forward, the plans for the classics and other Group 1 races will have to be  yet again re-arranged. The BHA have committed themselves to resume as soon as possible, now June 1^st at the earliest.

In France, this week, racing has started again, behind closed doors. However, no horses which are not trained locally to the race courses are allowed to run.

In Ireland, the racing authorities were hoping for a resumption of racing behind closed doors in line with the French programme. However, they were rather knocked back when the Prime Minister of Ireland stated that racing was very low on his list of priorities and if they were racing by September, they would be doing quite well!!!This certainly has not gone down well.

In New Zealand, where it appears that their 1,6 billion dollar racing industry is under severe strain is to be given an injection of 72 million dollars to help the sport through these difficult times.

Various sales companies in Europe announced that they would postpone their sales until later in May, and released catalogues for the respective sales. However, it now clear that Tattersalls will have to yet again re-schedule their breeze up sales, along with Goffs of Ireland, bath due to have been held in May. What happens in France is anyone’s guess!!

As we write, the British authorities in charge of the various disciplines have made announcement that they were not expecting to resume any sport until July 1^st.  When it does resume it will be under strict rules and done in a slow and measured way.

We heard a couple of weeks ago that Burghley Horse Trials were still being planned but that Blenheim Horse Trials had been cancelled along with the British Dressage National Championships in the summer.

The FEI have been pretty quiet recently, save an announcement lade over the weekend that the European Championships in 2021 have been cancelled to allow competitors to concentrate on the now re-scheduled Olympic Games in Tokyo. They are expected to make further comments later this week.

This article is the main news from around the world regarding plans for starting the sports again. Everything is very fluid and what may be planned now could well fall under a bus next week. There is not much point in reporting the state of play every week, but as we have not addressed the issue for a few weeks now, we thought a round up may be useful.

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