LIZ Doyle has had to let half of her staff go but is very hopeful of taking each member back on in a month or six weeks time.

“I’ve had to let four people go so far so I’m down to half of what I’d usually have staff-wise,” Doyle said. “I’ve just made sure they were all okay and sorted out for everything. That’ll be the case for another month or six weeks.

“It would absolutely be the hope to take them back on when and if we can, sooner rather than later. I have had some owners saying that they might be struggling with training fees for a while and that’s great – they’re communicating that to me as we go along. Most owners have been very good about it.”

With Horse Racing Ireland (HRI) announcing their plan to prioritise the flat programme for the first month of when racing resumes, many trainers with summer jumpers have had their plans pushed further back.

“We’ve got about 20 in at the minute – my National Hunt three-year-olds for next year, a couple of flat horses and a few breakers. It’s mostly just getting horses sorted for next year before they’re left off.

“It is a bit annoying that the summer jumps campaign has been pushed back but you can see where HRI are coming from. I suppose there are a lot of flat horses there ready to go and they’ll probably want to squeeze all the flat racing into the first month in order to catch up.

“You can understand where they’re coming from and we just have to get on with it at this stage.”