A THERMAL CAMERA system will be used to check attendees’ temperatures when horse racing resumes behind closed doors in Ireland on 8 June.
Anyone showing an elevated reading will not be allowed entry into the race meeting.
The thermal camera system is one of the Covid-19 protocols Horse Racing Ireland [HRI] has outlined in a 77-page document as it gets set to return to action from next month, following Government approval.
Only the essential personnel needed to run each race meeting will be permitted to be on-site when horse racing gets up and running again.
HRI says each attendee for every race meeting – jockeys, trainers, officials, racecourse staff, cleaning staff, and others – will be required to complete a “baseline health screening questionnaire followed by a set of further screening questions” every 24 hours before being involved at a race meeting.
The governing body also says that surfaces at all race meetings will be “regularly disinfected both before racing and throughout the race day.”
People over the age of 70 will not be permitted to attend in the initial stage of the return, as per Government advice.
HRI says it will run a series of “educational webinars” in the coming weeks to ensure those involved in the race meetings from next month fully understands all protocols.
“It is incumbent on everybody in the industry to familiarise themselves with the new protocols, to partake in the upcoming webinars which will help bring these protocols to life and to ensure that the racecourse continues to be a safe place to work,” said HRI CEO Brian Kavanagh.
Horse racing was initially expected to resume in Ireland on 29 June but that date was brought forward following submissions from HRI.
Yesterday, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar defended the resumption of the horse racing earlier than envisaged, stating that it is “a big economic sector, a lot of people employed in it, worth nearly €500 million euro to the economy each year.”
