Jamie Codd has spoken of his hope that amateur jockeys will be able to compete at next month’s Festival as the countdown continues to the four biggest days in the National Hunt season.
Currently under British government restrictions, amateur jockeys are unable to compete in racing which leave the likes of the ten-time Cheltenham Festival winning Codd and other top names within the point-to-point sphere such as Derek O’Connor, Barry O’Neill and Rob James being unable to make the trip across the Irish Sea this year.
“At the minute amateurs are not riding in the UK, even the Hunter Chases over there are being ridden by professionals. This thing is changing so quick, we are hoping that maybe by the end of February we might get a little bit more clarity on the whole thing,” said Codd on the Final Furlong podcast.
“In Ireland we are called qualified riders, so hopefully us qualified riders will be back for the festival but at the minute it looks like we won’t.
“Ultimately I think this is going to come down to the government’s take on it and how they are going to police elite sport. If numbers start to come down, we are still five weeks away from the festival and a lot changes in five days with this thing.
“It would be a big miss to have Cheltenham without amateurs but at the minute that’s the way it is looking and we’ll just have to face it when we know the way that it is looking for definite.
“In Ireland in my opinion the only one that this really impacts is Patrick (Mullins) because he is going to be lining up in a Gold Cup, a Champion Hurdle, probably ride Melon in the Ryanair, so he has choice rides in some of the championship races.
“As regards myself, Derek (O’Connor), Barry O’Neill, I will hopefully ride in the Champion Bumper and then the rest of the amateur races, but I don’t necessarily ride in too many of the professional races and neither do any of the other qualified riders in Ireland.
“I don’t think there would be too many amateurs in Ireland that would turn professional for it.”
The main man - Jamie Codd strikes again!
— Racing TV (@RacingTV) March 10, 2020
The brilliant amateur steers Ravenhill to glory in the National Hunt Chase. Gordon Elliott off the mark for the week! #CheltenhamFestival @CoddJJ @gelliott_racing pic.twitter.com/4btLcd2bhr
The former champion point-to-point rider also spoke of the need to get action between the flags back up and running as quickly as possible.
“At the minute I think if we could get back for maybe early March, the four-year-old season kicks off early February so if we can get back early March you would literally only be missing four or five weeks which is not the end of the world.
“But if it did run into April by the time we were back that is going to have a massive effect. We are going to be chasing our tail trying to catch up on meetings, if the ground went against us and turned good, there is just so many factors.
“It is such a big industry I just can’t emphasise that enough. The size of our industry in the point-to-point game, the money being turned over is huge. If these guys can’t get their point-to-points run and their point-to-point horses away, they can’t keep filling the stables and have nowhere to go with them.”
