days of anticipation and trepidation.

​I have my own thoughts on the coronavirus epidemic, if that is what it is, and they go like this. It is a variation on influenza, an outbreak of which after the 1st World War killed more people world-wide than the 4-years of conflict that preceded it. So, I appreciate the dire consequences that potential lie ahead of us. Thus far, and again I appreciate that the numbers will increase in the coming days and weeks, as of yesterday (March 1st) only 39 people out of a population of over 6-million are afflicted with the disease, and given how little information is forthcoming about the ages and health of these people or whether they are seriously ill or are just presenting symptoms similar to the ‘ordinary’ bad cold of flu, it is almost impossible for the public to gage if the situation is as critical as reported in the media. I suspect that what is currently going on is an exercise or experiment in controlling the populace. Which is why it bewilders me that no one is questioning why, at this present time, it is being considered prudent to put a stop to outside events, such as the Cheltenham Festival.
My gut feeling, unless coronavirus takes hold in many thousands of people over the next week, is that the Festival will take place, though I am unsure if we will be as lucky with the Grand National meeting and even, if the predictions and guesswork of shutdowns, lockdowns and the cessation of all normal life for up to six or eight weeks come to pass, the Guineas and early summer flat festivals.
I can envisage a Cheltenham made famous for all-time by the compulsory wearing of face-masks and the brow-beating of whether jockeys should ride in them, with the racecourse deep-cleaned every night after racing. Last year, of course, it was the horses who were being scrutinised for signs of equine flu, now it is the turn of the human population. Anyone see the signs of a pattern emerging? A gathering of a quarter-of-a-million people throughout the four-days would offer a good opportunity for the Health Service to take swabs or whatever they must do to diagnose how many people are cultivating the coronavirus, or indeed have the condition already, as inconvenient and annoying as that will prove for people who just want to have fun.
It would be good practise if race-goers who have travelled to and from Asia and Italy, as well as other countries worst affected by the epidemic, to be advised not to attend Cheltenham this year and for anyone who suspects they may have associated in any way with someone who has recently arrived back from Asia, Italy, etc, to volunteer themselves for testing for the virus. Perhaps in an effort to protect the Festival from postponement Cheltenham could contact the National Health Service and ask if they see any benefit in doing as I suggest.
Until Tuesday I also suggest you do as I do: pray to a deity I don’t believe in that the Cheltenham Festival does not become a victim of a virus that could have as easily escaped from a Chinese laboratory as it might just be a controlled exercise for a long-term goal we cannot imagine.
 
Recently, the Racing Post’s former editor, Bruce Millington, wrote an article that mirrored my own thoughts on the mind-twisting proliferation of horses bearing names that require the ordinary racing man to have a passing knowledge of the French language. He, of course, put his thoughts more succinctly than I could ever hope to achieve and he also offered a very sensible idea of how to overcome what I perceive as a problem. When one of these young horses come to our shores it should have its name altered or changed into something English. It could be as simple as merely translating the French into English.
I suspect I come across quite anal about the naming of horses. Since a child the names of horses have fascinated me, with names I had forgotten all about lighting a memory when I come across them in books. Yesterday in ‘Masters of Manton’ I came across I Claudius, a horse whose career I scarcely recall. I could not have even told you it was trained by George Todd, the master of Manton I most easily recall. Yet in seeing his name on the page it brought a soupçon of pleasure, a feathered leap back into a past I hardly remember. The names of racehorses, I contend, are important. As a child I could not understand why such a noble animal would be given a silly or disrespectful name and as a man receding into dotage, I cannot understand why the authorities think there is sense in horses having names that in the future no one but linguist will remember.
And that’s my argument: as with Arabic names, in years to come people taking part in a quiz asked to name the winner of a major race in 2020 or some year in the past decade, will have every aspect of the answer floating around their head, the owner, jockey, trainer, the name of the pretty groom, but not the name of the horse as it is so familiar to so many other unpronounceable names around at the time. The odd French name is perfectly acceptable, as has been the case down the generations but now the race-card is awash with them. It almost a plague of foreignness. An epidemic of linguistic gymnastics. A pandemic of tongue-twisting. An entanglement of hangy-bits above or below a letter that somehow or other alter the pronunciation which only the university educated understand or indeed care about. I fear that in the near-future I.T.V. will be employing Sally-Anne Grassick to translate French names into English and then we will all know not only how to pronounce A Plus Tard correctly, without embarrassing ourselves with our lack of conviction to the subject, but also the banality of what it means in English. (The deity I don’t believe in help us if the Norwegians or Icelanders take an interest in breeding National Hunt youngstock!)