Committee has first meeting as it pushes for racegoers to get back on track

The process of trying to get racegoers back on to Irish tracks began in earnest this week with the first meeting of a six-man committee which was chaired by Ballinrobe manager John Flannelly.

Following Thursday's announcement of which tiers various areas of England fall in, Ludlow, Lingfield, Kempton and Haydock can all welcome racegoers next Wednesday and, speaking about the first meeting, Flannelly said: "It was a good consultation. Everyone had the same objective and that is to get people back racing as soon as we can. We'd have everyone back next week if we could, but that's not possible at the moment.

"We want to get racing back to where we were before this pandemic. We hope that will happen sooner rather than later, but it is very hard to be 100 per cent sure of anything. There is good news on the vaccine front, and people are always looking for light at the end of the tunnel – hopefully we can provide that soon."