LAST Friday week the Taoiseach announced that horse racing could resume from June 8th behind closed doors. Less than 24 hours later Horse Racing Ireland published a 77-page document outlining the health and safety measures which must be adopted by all stakeholders who need to attend racedays.

It’s clear that the document took weeks to produce and there is little doubt that it played a major part in the Government’s decision. In a statement issued moments after the Government’s decision, HRI chief executive Brian Kavanagh singled out the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board’s chief medical officer Dr Jennifer Pugh for her “significant input” into the strengthened protocols.

This week we asked Dr Pugh to tell us more about how the protocol document was put together and what more needs to be done.

Mark Costello (MC): How much work involved in putting together the protocols document?

Dr Jennifer Pugh (JP): My colleagues Lynn Hillyer, Paul Murtagh, Niall Cronin and I learned a lot from the 10 meetings we had already staged behind closed doors. But a lot of that was learned on the move. Now we had to sit down and put it on paper. It remains a moving document as Government guidelines continue to change.

Essentially what we did was we looked at the people who have to be at the races and how their day goes. We thought about how they could carry out their roles so that everyone complies with social distancing and have adequate hygiene opportunities.

We wanted to create a scenario whereby if anyone tested positive then nobody else at the races would be deemed a close contact, as they would not have been with a metre of anyone for more than 15 minutes. The aim was to have the smallest number of people for the shortest period of time, using the space available to us.

There will be no congregation of people at any one time, no communal areas. Everyone stays in their own spaces.

MC: What was the most challenging aspect of it?

JP: The stableyard has the biggest number of people to manage. The passports are being checked online and changes to the veterinary procedures to ensure minimal interpersonal contact. There will also be a one-way system in the stableyard and we will be staggering arrivals, though that is not something we can fully enforce as we would like. For example, if a trainer has runners in the first and last races, it is not reasonable to ask them to send two horseboxes. But otherwise we are asking that horseboxes don’t arrive too early and leave as soon as possible after their horses have raced. We want to avoid queues everywhere and the IHRB security team will play a vital role in this area.

MC: Who else was involved in drawing up the document?

JP: On the HRI side, it was essentially Jason Morris and Sharlene O’Reilly. For the IHRB, it was Paul Murtagh, Lynn Hillyer, Chris Gordon, Niall Cronin, Peter Matthews and myself.

All the senior management team who perform raceday duties know the movements of everyone on the ground on racedays.

We also had access to the protocols being used in places like Hong Kong, and to colleagues such as Dr Jerry Hill of the British Horseracing Authority, the IRFU’s medical director Dr Rod McLoughlin, as well as those in Australia and the USA.

MC: The health screening, but before you travel to the races and when you get there, is a major part of the protocol. Why is that necessary?

JP: The aim is try as much as you can to ensure that anyone who might be unwell is kept away. You only want a healthy population at the races.

Some people have commented that our procedures are overkill but I would stress that these are the lengths we had to go to get racing on. We have a Government who have taken a very cautious approach and the country has done really well. Many in racing have continued to go to work every day but, on the other hand, some people have suffered terrible losses and lost loved ones. We have a responsibility to make sure we keep everyone safe. These protocols are what it took to persuade the Government we could go ahead.

MC: So what do people have to do before they are allowed in to the racecourse?

JP: We will have an online system where stakeholders will have to register and fill in a baseline questionnaire. There will be 15 questions, all of which require a yes or no answer. Questions such as have you already had Covid-19, have you been abroad recently, are you engaged in other work, and do you have an underlying health condition. Your answers will only be seen by me, and if you answer ‘yes’ to any of the questions I will call you to discuss it. It may only require a simple clarification.

The second questionnaire is a much shorter one which you must fill in every day before you go racing. There are only four questions, again all are answered yes or no. You just log into the app, answer the four questions, and submit your answers. Once you get clearance, you are sent a bar code which is your access pass. If you don’t have a smart phone then you will need to print out that bar code.

MC: What has reaction been from stakeholders?

JP: We don’t anticipate problems. Racing is only going ahead because we gave a commitment that these procedures are being carried out, so we need buy-in from everyone. We are the only professional sport of any description getting going. We need to prove we can do this, out of respect for the Government’s decision as well as to those who have suffered. We do recognise the impact of these protocols on racehorse owners. One of the challenges is keeping our numbers as low as possible, hence owners have been asked to sacrifice a lot by not attending for now.

MC What other measures are the IHRB and HRI taking to get the message across?

JP: We anticipate that not everyone will have read all 77 pages of the document, especially those who work in the industry and are not native English speakers. We are making a huge effort to ensure that everyone knows what to expect, so next week we will be making a series of videos which will walk everyone through the process. There will be sections for jockeys, trainers and stable staff. The website and app have the ability to push out all our educational material.

MC: What is the one piece of advice you would give to all stakeholders?

JP: I would appeal to everyone to make it a success. This is only the start. It’s one thing to get racing on, it’s another to keep it going.

All eyes will be on us.