Leading Irish jumps trainer Gordon Elliott has stated that he has to carry on like it is "business as usual" with him being involved in the issue that has taken over the racing world in the coming hours with the equine influenza problem hitting Britain.
Elliott sent five horses over to Scotland on Wednesday to compete at Ayr in there jumps meeting, he saw three from his yard go on to land the spoils.
However, for his glory his horses may have been prone to infection with one of the horses who is thought to have the influenza also racing on the card alongside Elliott's runners.
It is believed that the infected yard is that of trainer Donald McCain's and any horse that has come in contact with the three involved in the investigation could have all picked up the disease due to the contagious nature of the virus.
Gordon Elliott may have stepped in at the right time with his runners and not made things a lot worse for him and his yard as his horses that raced at Ayr were put into Isolation before they had returned to his stables. They had got as far as Ireland though.
Due to this bit of luck the trainer is able to carry on as usual in Ireland and with just the one meeting at Thurles going ahead today he now has runners there.
(Credit At The Races) The trainer said: “The horses we ran at Ayr yesterday never came back to our yard and instead went to a non-racing isolation yard that is about 25 minutes away from where we are based.
“We’ve been told that the chances of this affecting our runners from yesterday is very remote. But we can’t take any chances whatsoever, and those horses that went to Ayr will be quarantined as long as they have to be.
“Hopefully everything will get back to normal in Britain as quickly as possible -but from our point of view it’s business as usual, and we’re sending seven horses to Thurles today.”
The BHA are in constant contact with the public and all racing officials after calling off meetings on Thursday at Doncaster, Ffos Las, Huntingdon and Chelmsford and there will be news later tonight if racing on Friday and Saturday is to go ahead as normal.
This truly is a strange and deeply concerning time for the sport that hopefully can be swiftly cleaned up before the start of the Cheltenham Festival.