Meetings are currently being run without spectators but on Wednesday afternoon the sport could be halted indefinitely
The immediate future of Ireland’s racing programme will be decided later on Wednesday when a meeting – by conference call – of the board of Horse Racing
Ireland considers whether to continue its current policy of staging race meetings behind closed doors during the global coronavirus outbreak.
HRI has run five meetings without spectators since last Friday – at Dundalk (Friday), Navan (Saturday), Limerick (Sunday), and then on Tuesday at Wexford and Down Royal (which is geographically in
Northern Ireland and thus the
UK but administered by HRI). In the same five-day period,
British racing has launched and then abandoned a brief attempt to carry on behind closed doors, having announced on Tuesday that all racing in
Britain has been cancelled until at least the end of April.