The Cheltenham horse racing festival should probably not have been allowed to go ahead last month shortly before Britain went into lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Horse Racing Ireland CEO Brian Kavanagh has said.
Many Irish racing fans were among the average 60,000 spectators that attended each day of the four-day festival in the south of England from 10-13 March.
Three days later, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson asked people to stop frequenting public places and the country was then locked down on 23 March.
The UK government defended its decision to allow sporting events to go ahead at the time, including the Liverpool-Atletico Madrid Champions League game at Anfield, but Kavanagh said it might have been better if Cheltenham was held without fans or not at all.
"It was unfortunate because it was the last major sporting event to take place (in Britain)," he said in an interview on the Sport for Business website today.
"Should it have taken place? With hindsight, probably no, but everyone's wise after the event and the British government was saying that everything was OK.
"That was the very week where the whole thing ramped up with coronavirus... The images from Italy started to come through in great detail and by the end of that week, we were racing behind closed doors in Ireland."
The United Kingdom has 161,145 confirmed cases and 21,678 deaths so far, according to a Reuters tally.
The Republic of Ireland has 19,877 confirmed cases and 1,159 people have died.
"I think with hindsight, people would recognise that Cheltenham would have been much better if it went behind closed doors," Kavanagh added.
"Not a decision that we have any control over, it's entirely a matter for the British authorities and the British government."
Kavanagh added that racing in Ireland was ready resume behind closed doors with a week to ten days' notice of government permission.
"Ironically, unlike other sports... a race course when you strip out the public, when you strip out the bookmakers, when you strip out all of the public-facing aspects, they're actually ideally suited to social distancing," he said.
"You can run racing, and respect the requirements of social distancing."
