ON-OFF SAGA THAT COST RACING £12M

REMEMBER the Cheltenham Festival when nothing happened?

- BY DAVID YATES

As the countdown progressed to the 2001 Festival, Istrabraq was a hot favourite for a record-breaking fourth Champion Hurdle triumph and King George VI Chase victor First Gold led the betting for the Cheltenham Gold Cup.But on February 19, vets detected foot-and-mouth disease in pigs at an abattoir in the Essex village of Little Warley — and so began a chain of events that would see the meeting cancelled for the first time since World War II.

Within days, further cases were confirmed in Northumberland and Devon and the then British Horseracing Board faced calls to suspend fixtures.

Horses, unlike cattle, sheep and pigs, are immune to the virus, so the regulator resisted.