Testing times no burden for Berry and his team as racing tries to get restarted

British racing is in lockdown. Stacks of stables are under biohazard quarantine, there will be no action until the middle of next week at the earliest and everyone is on red alert for signs and symptoms of dreaded equine influenza.

There are snotty noses on show at John Berry’s Beverley House Stables in the centre of Newmarket on Friday, but they belong solely to the humans. Indeed, while homo sapiens reach for tissues, clear their throats and produce phlegmy coughs, the equine population at the yard look healthy, happy and content.

That is at least until Stuart Williamson from the Newmarket Equine Hospital enters a box armed with a long plastic stick with a fluffy end. Quick as a flash, Williamson inserts the tool up the nostril of a horse and out again before clasping his latex-gloved hand around the end. The stick is snipped, the moistened fluffy piece goes into a sterilised tube and the lid goes on.