Ruby Walsh: Fear of missing out won’t be a problem at Cheltenham this year

Mick Winter’s Cheltenham hopefuls Sayce Gold (Mick Winters - near side) and Chatham Street Lad (Abi Fitzgibbon) enjoying a stroll in the Shannon Estuary near Beale Beach Co Kerry. Picture: Healy Racing

By the time you have picked up your copy of this morning’s Irish Examiner, the stable staff heading for Cheltenham with the horses that will represent Willie Mullins on Tuesday next will have been on the go since 3.30am.

The 16 horses scheduled to leave Dublin Port at 8am will have been fed and walked before being loaded for departure at 5.30am to embark on the first leg of their 12-hour journey. That’s roughly what it takes door to door, and this year the added paperwork of Brexit coinciding with all the Covid regulations means it will probably take longer.

Stable staff have always been accommodated on-site at Cheltenham in the Hunters’ Lodge, but this year that will only be for their UK counterparts. The Best Mate enclosure has been converted into an Irish village. I say “village” for the want of dressing up the idea, but there won’t be a Guinness Village or any other temporary hospitality structure in Prestbury Park this March, so the Irish Village in the Best Mate enclosure is about as fancy as it gets.

But the Best Mate is just about as far as most Irish participants will get at Cheltenham this year. That village is where the Irish horses will be too, as the stables have separate entry points on the enclosure side.

The guidelines in place are stricter than many people believed they would be but, in light of an event taking place right on the outskirts of a big town, I imagine they are pretty much required. I doubt too many of us would be receptive of 160 or so UK residents landing into site here this week without expecting them to be at least confined to that area. And that is exactly what Cheltenham is doing.

Cheltenham Festival

The latest news, views, analysis and opinions on Cheltenham from the Irish Examiner sports desk and our  team of award-winning horse racing writers, tipsters and fans

Go

Once you arrive and enter the Irish bubble at the racecourse you must stay in it. There is no going to the shop or in to town for a take-away. And, although events in the last fortnight may have a cast a doubt about how responsible we in the racing world are, getting from the port or airport to Cheltenham is each individual’s responsibility and one every individual is keen on showing we can successfully carry out.

Everyone going - trainers, jockeys, stable staff and three Covid officers, in line with government guidelines - will have been PCR tested and those who will have to break social distance guidelines like rugby or soccer players, will have been tested three times in the last 14 days.

Obviously, they will have separate changing rooms to their English and French colleagues, but splitting the races is not so easy, even if some of the UK participants might be hoping the Irish could be put in races of their own!

And only those involved in each single day’s racing will have access to the enclosure, otherwise they are confined to the Irish bubble with stable yard access.

Anyone not returning within 72 hours of having their PCR test taken will be required to take another on-site before they depart, and then do the five-day quarantine on arrival home before a mandatory final PCR test for everyone bar the jockeys who, to be fair, are elite athletes so can continue to race ride but must isolate otherwise and take the final test.

It will be worth all the effort for most but, looking at the guidelines, for the majority fun is one thing it won’t be.

I can’t imagine riding a winner of that magnitude, at that venue, to be met with silence. I know we have watched it all for months now, like Liverpool in the Premier League, Dublin and Limerick or Tipp and Cavan - monumental days in people’s lives and no one there to share them with but teammates.

The successful Irish jockeys next week will leave the enclosure each evening to stay in the Irish bubble without even their partner to have dinner with. It will be work, and they are glad to have it.

If you have made this an annual pilgrimage, you won’t have FOMO because you are not missing any fun.

Home will be the place to be because this year is only going to be about the most important element of the party: the racing.

The horses and jockeys on the track, the ones green at heart, will be the ones for the rest to be of envious of.