THE BHA were pleased as punch after a week of behind-closed doors action went off without any major headaches.
Plenty of scrutiny was placed on the sport as it returned weeks before others, but with the Guineas at Newmarket topping off a successful resumption, all involved let off a sigh of relief.
A few late withdrawals at the start, a ban for Oisin Murphy and a few uncompleted questionnaires – meaning a handful of stable staff were turned away – provided a fright or three, but was as bad as it got during week one.
A bumper audience tuned into ITV on Saturday to watch the 2000 Guineas – almost 1.5 million, double last year – as the show got back on the road, and it’s just over a week until Royal Ascot. The opportunity the sport has, albeit a brief, is obvious, and so far it is trying its best.
A BHA spokesman said: “A lot of hard work has gone in to making the first week run as smoothly as it has, and the teams at the BHA and Racecourses as well as our trainers, jockeys and stable staff deserve a great deal of credit.
“Protocols and guidelines are being followed and social distancing respected.
“There have been some technical issues, which could be expected considering the scale of the task, but fortunately nothing that has developed into a major issue.
“The administrative task of clearing all individuals to access the racecourse has been a considerable one and it has been fortunate we made the move to 72 hour decs to help accommodate that.
“We’re still working with trainers to make that process as efficient as possible before we make the move back to 48 hour decs.
“It is still relatively early days yet and we’ll keep all our protocols under constant review.”
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