Why racing was right to call a halt

Horses cannot contract foot-and-mouth but they can spread it and many are trained close to farmland, some on farms. Mary Reveley has 120 racehorses on her farm in Saltburn but the cows outnumber them with ease. Mick Easterby is one of the biggest farmers in Yorkshire and not a bad trainer either. My father invested in sheep a few years ago as a more efficient way of keeping the gallops in good condition - they beat a mower every time. Point-to-pointing is hosted, run and enjoyed by farmers.

Farming and racing are inextricably linked to the point where in many cases a yard could not run if it were not for the help and support of the local farm who allow access to their land.

Although racing represents a "very small risk", according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, there is no guarantee that a horsebox that has travelled through a farmyard, or a horse that has galloped across land where sheep have been grazing could not be the vehicle for the disease to spread from one end of the country to another.

Ferdy Murphy was one of the trainers who voluntarily closed his own yard before the suspension was announced. His opinion says much about the close links between racing and farming.

"I live in the middle of a farming community," he said. "I've a farm on one side with 300 cattle and one on the other side with 1,000 sheep. If I brought this disease back here I could never forgive myself."

Foot-and-mouth is almost impossible to contain, given that anything from a sneeze from an infected animal to a crow scavenging from one farm to another can spread the disease, but to save the already beleaguered farming industry, everything that can be done must be done to try to contain this outbreak.

You control what you can and hope that the elements that are beyond control do not conspire against you. Racing can be controlled.

The large majority of people in racing fully support the action of the BHB and the Jockey Club, but there is the odd dissenting voice.

The Racing Post questioned: "Is this the correct course of action?" on their front page, pointing out that the suspension of racing in 1967 "had little or no impact in controlling the problem".

John McCririck, outspoken betting expert for Channel 4 Racing (for whom the exclusive coverage of Cheltenham Festival is their most important contract) has never been short of a distinctive opinion and believes that "the Jockey Club and the BHB have betrayed the sport they purport to represent" by taking action before they were forced to by the Government.

"Racing has self-destructed unnecessarily . . . the 2001 Cheltenham Festival in March is now doomed," he bemoaned, sounding for all the world like Private Fraser on Dad's Army.

McCririck seems to take the opposite view to every sane person in racing and displays a distinct lack of empathy with the farmers.

But then McCririck is airing the views of those for whom racing exists primarily as a means to bet. The chairman of the British Betting Office Association, Warwick Bartlett, similarly described the suspension of racing as "ridiculous".

Can they honestly imagine the public-relations disaster of horseboxes driving up and down the country to race meetings in rural areas that people are being warned to avoid? Running for prize money that reflects the amount individual farmers can expect to lose over the coming months with the smell of burning carcasses filling the air.

As for Cheltenham - what prospect does a three-day Festival hold with no Irish horses or fans, with the favourite for the Gold Cup likely to be holed up in France and with the country set, who fill the stands, barely able to raise a smile?

If there is a quicker way to destroy National Hunt racing in this country than by staging it in the midst of such a crisis, then I cannot think of it.

For those who are desperate to have a bet I am sure McCririck and Barlett will be delighted to see that Standard Sport are kindly printing cards and form for racing all around the world.