Kiplingcotes Derby falls to virus – but Greyville holds aloft torch for racing world

Things are moving faster than great sprinter Senor Santa as the coronavirus panic escalates. It’s become pointless to try to keep up with all the latest postponements and cancellations. It’s easiest to just assume that everything is off.

Except that’s not quite true. As of Wednesday morning, there was a closed-doors race meeting on at Greyville Polytrack – a happy event that made headlines in the UK’s top racing publication Racing Post.

“You can still gamble at Greyville or be happy with a bet at the Valley,” reads the headline, alerting readers to the Durban fixture and another at Hong Kong’s Happy Valley – two glimmers of light in a gloomy outlook for punters worldwide.

Both race meetings were telecast around the world, giving wager-hungry millions something to snack on. As such, it certainly raised the profile of South African racing.

Racing Post advised: “Viewers and punters will need to adjust their schedule, though, as South Africa leads off with an eight-race meeting, starting at 10.50am [UK time].”

On Monday this week, both SA and UK racing authorities announced that crowds would be banned from venues, but races would still be held. Since then, the Brits have cancelled all racing until May – as the French did earlier.

SA officials have thus far resisted pressure for a shut-down but have tweaked Monday’s declared restrictions by removing horse owners and assistant trainers from the list of people allowed on course. As predicted, April’s National Yearling Sale in Germiston has been postponed by a month.

The closed-doors strategy has certainly worked for Hong Kong, which has been racing before empty grandstands for a month – for the benefit of online and some off-course betting shop business – and there are indications the city is winning the war on the virus.

South African racing desperately needs to keep rolling; a lengthy suspension of action could prove fatal to the industry.

From Yorkshire in the UK comes news that the Kiplingcotes Derby, the world’s oldest horse race, has been called off. Galloped over farmland and along lanes near the town of Market Weighton, the Derby has been held on the third Thursday of March since 1519.

Any steed and rider can pitch up and take part in this contest – with competitors ranging from retired racers to kids’ ponies and even shire horses. Betting is allowed and a couple of bookmakers take their chances among the country folk

For last year’s 500^th anniversary, 1,500 spectators turned up, but the usual crowd is 500-600 – too large for the times of corona.

The rules, dating from the reign of King Henry VIII, state that the race must be run every year and if it is not it must never be run again.

Race trustee and retired farmer Guy Stephenson, 87, said the cancellation was “disappointing”.

“It’s a bit drastic really and we were in two minds whether to or not but decided we better had cancel it,” he told news reporters. “It’s a bit of a tragedy.”

Tragedy is a bit strong. The race will, in fact, be held again in 2021 – the 502^nd renewal. To get around the pesky rule and keep the tradition alive, two riders will walk their horses along the four-mile flat route.

It’s the fourth time this dodge has been used – all previous occasions being within living memory. In 1947 massive snowfalls were the problem, in 2001 it was foot-and-mouth disease and in 2018 it was quad-bikers rendering the fields a treacherous mudbath.

Even 1666’s bubonic plague and 1918’s Spanish flu pandemic could not disrupt the spectacle of the Kiplingcotes Derby.

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