I WENT to the Cheltenham Racecourse media event on Wednesday, some of the content of which is summarised elsewhere in this edition (pages 20-21).

On the one hand the event was a much more effective vehicle for the raft of interviews with trainers, handicappers and track officials than has been the case in recent years, with a high trainer attendance rate – Nicky Henderson was the only trainer slated to attend who failed to show or provide a representative – and a less formal lunch setting which stopped things grinding to a halt as can happen.

There were the usual questions thrown at all the trainers present, and possibly the best answers were provided by Jonjo O’Neill, firstly when asked first if his new recruit Great Field might be well handicapped in the Grand Annual. “They’d hardly be sending him to me if he was” came the response, and you could actually hear Jonjo’s eyes twinkling from across the room with that.

Not to be deterred, presenter Oli Bell pressed on by asking if any of the Jackdaws Castle team might be deemed well handicapped. “Yes,” said Jonjo, twinkling so hard at this point, that most of us had to avert our eyes. “Minella Rocco”.

Good order

There were the usual round of “wouldn’t swap him” style responses and a lot of horses seem to be in really good order, although Warren Greatrex also did his best to subvert the norms of the event.

Asked whether recent Haydock winner Emitom could beat Paisley Park in the Stayers’ Hurdle, a deadpan Greatrex replied, “I wouldn’t have thought so”. Those who think he’s being defeatist may be underestimating the trainer, and his horse, although that’s a story for another day.

It was clear that along with the expected business of the day, there was another agenda to deal with, however, and when I asked a colleague which trainers he had already spoken to, he fixed me with a hang-dog stare. “I’m not talking to any trainers”, he replied glumly “I’m just here to write about the coronavirus.”

Yes, the v-word had raised its ugly head, and it doesn’t matter who you are, or what your view on the soon-to-be-global-pandemic/mild outbreak of the sniffles (delete as appropriate), everyone is talking about it. Even those who think we shouldn’t be talking about it.

Unlike 90% of people on social media, I’ve not recently become an expert on communicable diseases or international virus protocols. As such, I’ll be taking whatever advice is issued here formally, and while I’d be very surprised to find that advice being to stay away from the Cotswolds, in the unlikely event that the government say different, I’ll be rocking up with everyone else in a week-and-a-bit.

Cancellation

Of course, worrying about cancellation is pointless, as is promising that everything will be okay. Mr Renton’s (Cheltenham manager) assertion that Cheltenham has coped with equine flu, high winds and the ‘Beast from the East’ in recent years as some kind of guarantee that the spread of the coronavirus is a matter his staff can cope with is laughable, but his job is to get bums on seats, so it’s inevitable that he will want to play down any threat.

If there’s one thing that does scare me, it’s the assertion of Ian Renton, the course supremo, that the government “have done a fantastic job”. This merely makes me picture various members of the current cabinet striving to sit the right way round on the toilet, and predictably failing. Let’s hope someone with a clue is in charge of this particular project.