Tomorrow will be very interesting. Now this looks on the cards. If you think this is just an inconvience for a few mug horse punters you are wrong. I feel for the strappers etc who now have no job.
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Racing cancelled until February
HORSE racing in Brisbane is likely to be suspended until February following a horse flu outbreak near the city's racing precinct.
Racing Minister Andrew Fraser this afternoon said the discovery of equine influenza (EI) at stables in the Brisbane suburbs of Hendra and Deagon meant it was highly unlikely any racing events would be scheduled in the city before February 1 next year.
"We have a very significant issue that will require the industry as a whole to take a number of drastic measures to secure the long term future of the industry," he said.
"This undoubtedly is Queensland racing's darkest hour."
Mr Fraser said Queensland Racing hoped to move quickly to vaccinate horses in the areas surrounding Brisbane, including the Gold Coast, Ipswich and Toowoomba, once the first vaccines arrived later this week. He said it was hoped racing could return to those areas before February.
"The real name of the game at the moment is to make sure we get the vaccine by the weekend and get it out to horse populations that don't have it (EI) yet," he said.
"That would enable us, on some scenarios, to have the horses back on the track perhaps before February 1.
"But one of the issues is once you vaccinate, then you've got to spell all the horses and then there's a period before they will be back in any condition to race.
"So as to the time we can expect to see racing outside metropolitan Queensland, that very much is a day-by-day scenario at the moment."
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