FRENCH racing must have been the outsider of three, with Britain and Ireland, to be the first out of the blocks and back on the track.

It was fortunate to have certain supporters, notably François Bayrou, (a centrist politician and previous presidential candidate) and Philippe Augier (mayor of Deauville) who had strong political connections, directly to the President. As in life, it’s sometimes who you know.

It was a big surprise to me that the Irish racing fraternity hit something of a political wall. The biggest producer of thoroughbreds in Europe, in percentage terms racehorses occupy a much larger chunk of the economy than in England or France.

But these are different times, the like of which we have not seen before and, much as we love our racing, we have to recognise that governments find themselves in uncharted social, economic and above all health-related waters. Racing, even in Ireland, was never near the top of the list.

I think France got lucky, for the moment. However, as we discovered earlier this week, the French government has decided it is too soon to allow racing in the ‘red zones’ so as of last Thursday there will be no racing allowed in Paris or Chantilly until further notice. Consequently Deauville and Vichy will swing in to action and take up the slack.

Following the news a punchy tweet was put out on Tuesday evening by Edouard de Rothschild, the head honcho of French racing. He said the decision was “irrational and inexplicable” following up with “I will not give up” and, to the racing community, “I am proud of your exemplary behaviour behind closed doors since May 11th and the colossal work provided by our teams for more than two months. Responsive we are and will be. Long live our races”. Good on him, it was a rousing call to arms for racing to defend its interests in these difficult times.

Initially when French racing was shut down it was shut down by the racing authorities as the tap had been closed on the financial airpipe that came from PMU cafés which were to be closed.

Some 90% of betting on racing in France is done physically as opposed to online. Even now not all of the PMU outlets are open, so racing’s cut from betting turnover is well down (roughly 60%) and consequently prize money has had a haircut despite the government generously, if surprisingly, offering racing a tax break.

Understandably the biggest cut of 50% was taken by the Group 1 races with a decreasing pro-rata amount down to the lowest-paid races whose prize money was protected.

The revenue stream comes solely from the PMU and its recently arrived baby brother, Z Turf. There is no media rights income from racing in France. Indeed the money flows the other way with Equidia, the French racing channel, being heavily subsidised by part of the revenue that racing receives from the PMU.