UPDATED: Leading jockey Mark Zahra has tested NEGATIVE for coronavirus after a lengthy wait that had plenty within the racing community nervous.
Horse racing across the country has been suspended on Thursday except for a meeting in Narromine as the governing bodies awaited the test results for Zahra.
But in some fantastic news, his test returned negative - just as Tommy Berry and Hugh Bowman's did earlier in the day.
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Races will now resume in Victoria on Friday, and it is likely that the rest of the country will follow suit as the Autumn carnival hopefully marches on.
Racing Victoria advises that racing will resume in Victoria tomorrow – Friday, 27 March – following confirmation that licensed jockey Mark Zahra has tested negative for COVID-19. https://t.co/k34CZPHPIs
— Racing Victoria (@RacingInsider) March 26, 2020
I never thought I would search Mark Zahra this many times on twitter.
— Nick Quinn (@Quinny_1) March 26, 2020
In wonderful news for his health and racing fans his #corronavirus test has come back negative and we will be racing at Warrnambool and Pakenham on Friday.
In a statement from Racing NSW, they were awaiting Zahra's test results before resuming racing - hopefully on Friday at Muswellbrook and Sapphire Coast.
"Racing NSW confirms that the two NSW industry participants that had travelled on a charter flight on 21 March 2020 with an interstate participant who may have been exposed to COVID-19, have both tested negative to COVID-19," it said.
"Racing NSW awaits the result of the tests performed on the interstate participant which are due today, before advising of the status of upcoming race meetings."
Saturday's Rosehill meeting that features two Group 1 events will now likely go ahead.
Racing Victoria are in a similar boat in regards to waiting for Zahra, however their chief executive Giles Thompson had some interesting comments on Thursday morning.
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Thompson said that even if Zahra does return positive for COVID-19, it doesn't necessarily mean that racing in the state will be suspended.
"The simple answer is it depends," he told RSN Radio.
"It depends on the results of the contact tracing. In theory, if there are enough people that haven't been exposed to Mark in that period of time, in theory we can (continue).
"Who's left standing, if you like, and those who've been exposed to Mark (would require self-isolation), but it's not necessarily over.
"But it'll take some work to establish how to continue racing. As far as where we are now, we're all waiting for a test [result] basically.
"We're hopeful for an answer today, it can't be guaranteed, we're at the mercy of the system and we're in the queue like everyone else.
