Trainers are staying optimistic as tests are carried out, but flu may now be present at the Rebecca Menzies yard
There is always hope. Horse racing is an industry built on selling dreams, however fanciful, so its inhabitants are readily able to persuade themselves that everything will turn out all right, even as the bad news accumulates.
On Friday that bad news took the form of three new confirmed cases of equine influenza in active racehorses, taking the total to six. Racing professionals could reassure themselves with the thought that all six horses are based in the same stable, that of Cheshire-based Donald McCain. Perhaps the disease had not spread outside his yard. Perhaps this had all been caused by a single bad batch of the anti-flu vaccine which so many trainers give their charges at around this time of year. That would be much better than the alternative, that this is the emergence of a new strain of the flu virus which can defeat existing vaccines.
Written by Chris Cook
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/feb/09/equine-flu-crisis-hope-for-early-end-fades-new-positive-samples under the title “Hopes fade for early end to equine flu crisis as trainers await test results”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
