Inflaming a sore point

Perhaps it's nothing we didn't know already. Racing has an image problem that impacts long-term in a tangible diminution of interest. Once the dust has settled, we must knuckle down harder in attempts to safeguard its future as a popular sport.

But will the decision to continue racing - adhering to scientific fact against almost intolerable sentimental pressure - damage the sport's ambitions further? Would it have been tactically better to shut up shop, accept untold financial and less obvious losses for the sake of maintaining old allegiances?

Again, it's the problem of perception versus fact. Racing may appear to have burned its bridges - traditionally aligned with Royalty and the countryside, it seems to have broken away from both.

Will screaming headlines about the Queen expressing her concerns to racing chiefs, be recalled more readily than the fact Her Majesty was then satisfied by scientific arguments and even entered her horses to run?

Racing's rural allegiances are more complicated. Many within the sport have a foot in both camps, clouding logic with emotion. But in a year's time, will the feeling that racing fiddled while the countryside burned actually linger?

Science tells us racing has no case to answer on the spread of the disease. Studies of the 1967-8 outbreak, ratified in 1983 Government legislation, proved the sport's suspension had zero effect on controlling the problem. Yet the shutdown, not the analysis, is the precedent against which this sport has now been judged.

This hardly bodes well. Rather than collective memory identifying the real cause and exacerbations of this problem - dodgy meat imports, intensive farming, centralised slaughtering, unreasonable urban demand on rural industry - the sport may remain an unnecessary scapegoat.

Even so, it is unlikely to manifest itself, beyond the immediate crisis, in terms of numbers: horses, owners, training ranks or racecourse attendances. Media coverage of the sport day-to-day has resumed almost to normal and any downturn in sponsorship is likely to be minimal and shortlived. Time washes the slate clean.

But the alternative - calling off racing - may have had a very real impact on these indicators, forcing bankruptcy on many and losing external support to another leisure pursuit that carried on regardless.

In fact, the real precautionary measures racing introduced must sit favourably compared with other sports that continued in rural areas, drew countrywide crowds and yet took no disinfectant procedures. Within Westminster, where racing's credibility is slowly increasing, the responsible yet difficult stance its leaders took may stand them in good stead.

But the biggest political impact of racing's actions may come on the issue of hunting. Some - not all - of the racing community explicitly support the pro-hunting lobby. But racing's chiefs concentrate on the knock-on effects a ban on hunting would have on the sport - hunting being a kindergarten for future National Hunt stars, equine and human, and the backbone of Point-to-Pointing.

Amid concern that the anti-lobby could extend their focus from hunting to include shooting, angling and even National Hunt racing, this sport may be seen to have mortgaged long-term allegiances with the countryside over this foot-and-mouth crisis for short-term gain. Would the pro-hunting Countryside Alliance blame racing for a divided fall? Has racing lost some allies?

Treasonous thought: in the prevailing urban climate, it may actually benefit racing's long-term image to have prioritised its import as an industry, employer and revenue-earner over its ties with rural pursuits.

Has racing jumped the right way? Ask me in five years' time.