Golden Slipper coronavirus text exposed as fake

A text message claiming the world’s richest two-year-old race, the A$3.5 million (£1.73 million) Longines Golden Slipper, had been postponed on Saturday due to the coronavirus pandemic has been exposed as a fraud.

Connections with runners in the 6f contest, won by the likes of Pierro, Sepoy and Sebring, were shocked to receive what appeared to be a message from the official Racing New South Wales notification service.

The message read: "Racing NSW has been closely monitoring the ongoing issues with the [Covid-19] outbreak & the impact it has on all of us.

"We have today been informed that a staff member working out of Rosehill Gardens [racecourse] has tested positive for the virus and we have subsequently made the decision to postpone tomorrow's Golden Slipper meeting indefinitely while we have also made the decision to shut down all races in NSW effective immediately until April 24."

However Racing NSW has since confirmed the Golden Slipper race meeting will go ahead as planned and quickly took to Twitter to confirm the text message was a 'scam'.

"There is a fraudulent text message that has been sent to racing participants falsely claiming that tomorrow's race meetings are postponed. This text is a scam and is not accurate, all meetings are proceeding as planned," Racing NSW tweeted.

Racing in Australia has continued to take place despite the spread of Covid-19, which has led to seven deaths in the country, although the action is going on behind closed doors.

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