Horse racing resumes in England

LONDON: Horse racing resumed in England on Monday as professional sport got under way again following the easing of coronavirus lockdown restrictions.

Elite sport in Britain has been in a deep freeze since March but the government on Saturday approved the return of domestic competitive action behind closed doors from June 1. Premier League football is scheduled to restart on June 17, while cricket chiefs still hope to stage a full international programme during the summer.

Racing has a head start in its attempts to grab the attention of fans starved of live sport, but it looks very different from when it departed before lockdown. At Newcastle, in northeast England, there were no spectators to watch the 10 flat races while trainers, jockeys and grooms wore masks.

Zodiakos won the first race on English soil for 76 days as the 22-1 shot edged out stablemate Al Ozzdi on the line. "That has blown away the cobwebs," Zodiakos’s jockey Jimmy Sullivan told Sky Sports.

"In this heat today, riding in the mask, it is very warm and after pulling up I pulled it down a little just to get a few breaths in. "It wasn’t too bad though, it’s manageable and it’s the sort of thing that in a week you won’t even notice it."

The 2,000 Guineas, on June 6 at Newmarket, will be the first of the flat-racing season’s "Classic" races. Earlier in the day, pigeon racing enjoyed a brief moment in the spotlight.

More than 4,000 birds belonging to members of the Barnsley Federation of Racing Pigeons in the north of England were released from a park ahead of a 90-mile sprint. Organiser John Greenshield, 72, said the restart came earlier than many expected and so many of the birds are far from "match fit". But he said the return of racing would be a blessing for many in his community and was "like putting oxygen back into the area".

Snooker is also making a return on Monday, with reigning world champion Judd Trump starring in the opening match of the Championship League. The televised tournament, taking place in the central English town of Milton Keynes, is the first event since the Gibraltar Open in March. Trump described in a tweet how he had been tested for coronavirus: "Arrived in Milton Keynes test done hopefully all clear for action tomorrow... swab up the nose is not enjoyable at all. enjoy that everyone." But the coronavirus has caused further disruption to the global sporting calendar, with the Rugby Football League and the Australian Rugby League Commission announcing the cancellation of this year’s England-Australia Ashes series.