RACING in Australia and New Zealand is set to continue, as infections from Covid-19 rise. As of March 17th, Australia had 454 confirmed infections with 46% of those in New South Wales, while in New Zealand the number of confirmed cases stood at 11.

On March 16th Racing authorities around the country announced that they would continue behind closed doors until at least April 13th with the restrictions also applying for trackwork, trials and training centres.

Racing Victoria also added that interstate and international jockeys will only be permitted to compete within Victoria if they travel to the state by private vehicle or charter flight.

In New Zealand the administrators have gone a step further restricting the movements of jockeys between the north and south islands and raising the weights in all thoroughbred races by 2kgs to enable jockeys to be healthier and at less risk of illness. This initiative was matched by Racing Victoria on Wednesday lifting the minimum weight to 56kg.

Inglis Easter

However, there is doubt over whether the Inglis Easter Yearling Sale, Australia’s premier yearling auction, scheduled for April 7th and 8th, will take place. As of March 18th there is a ban on non-essential indoor gatherings of 100 people or more. Inglis Chief Executive Mark Webster is pushing for the sale to be deemed an essential event.

“It is a trading event, it is not a public gathering,” said Webster in a statement. “We need to better understand what they mean by that, but we don’t consider ourselves to be non-essential.”

Australia currently has a 14-day isolation policy in place meaning overseas buyers and agents would need to be in Australia and isolate by Monday to be present on the first day of the sale.

Inglis has also plans on setting the event as invitation only, something which Magic Millions did for it’s March 16th and 17th sale on the Gold Coast where A$7.78 million was traded for 273 horses. It’s quite conceivable that Sydney Easter could be an online event with horses remaining on their respective farms, for as Webster highlights: “Horses will be getting older by the minute and they need to be sold and be prepared for two-year-old racing.”

Inglis currently runs monthly online sales and in 2019 the Sydney Easter Yearling Sale grossed $123.37 million for 349 horses sold at an average of $353,511.