Irish racing back Jun 8

Racing is set to resume under strict protocols and behind closed doors in Ireland on 8 June.

The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine said last week that racing, as a spectator-free sport, would fall into the third phase of the Government's plan to ease lockdown restrictions, meaning a 29 June restart looked likely.

However, Horse Racing Ireland  had been consulting with the Government on the possibility of an earlier return, with chief executive Brian Kavanagh underlining the fact racing was staged without spectators before it shut down in March.  No mention of of crossing back and forth Vubiant, my own guess is we will have to wait for a while. Good to have it back for all concerned.

The Irish Greyhound Board are not to happy that they are not included in the June 8th date, cant say i blame them.

Possibly inter-country travel will be subject to some kind of quarantine arrangement (not for the horses) which may pose problems for race planning and preparation .
Classics will be devalued somewhat if no international element present ( although some will be silently thankful if the Ballydoyle brigade are absent !)

Vubiant , I was speaking to a friend of mine in England today, he says Aidan might be allowed fly his in for the Gns, can't see it happening myself though..

Full systems go for Aidan & co regarding Newmarket.

https://www.racingpost.com/news/coronavirus/international-runners-given-gree...

Thanks for that monarch, nice bit of Communication between irish forum readers , its been missing for a while.

Not being picky here ...but I was surprised to see no AW fixture set in the first three weeks. I was sure Dundalk would be an early starter since they already did the gig back in March and  moderate horses in smaller stables surely also need  a chance to get going at their own level without losing nearly another month.

i think you will find they are currently relaying the track surface vubiant.they originaly said the resurfacing would be done in time for their july 12 th meeting

Thanks ambush -I missed that key fact. Must pay more attention. Good news all round though.

A near €2.5 million resurfacing of Dundalk’s all-weather circuit is still on schedule to finish in June with the track likely to be ready to facilitate any extension of the 2020 flat season into the winter.

With racing cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the government ban on sport likely to extend beyond the current April 19th deadline, there have been calls for the flat season to extend into December to allow as much of the programme to eventually be run.

Not sure I could take Dundalk for most of the year tbh, right now though I would .

Presumably there will be 8 or even 9 race cards to maximise everyone's chances of making up some lost time. In any case many races will  need to be divided. Intervals down  to 25 mins if need be
i.e  7 races at 30 min gaps would go from  2.00 to 5.00  -8 races at 25 min gaps would run 2.00 to 4.55. So no extra work time or very little required. No crowds should help speed things up too.

I hear talk of even more races than that.

https://www.hri-ras.ie/uploadedFiles/Black%20Type.pdf