The horse rac­ing fra­ter­ni­ty can now look to "Sport of King" to re­sume on Labour Day (June 19).

With an air of ex­pectan­cy, rac­ing in T&T looks like­ly to re­turn to the San­ta Rosa Park, in un­der one month's time.

The Ari­ma Race Club (ARC) in a let­ter to Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, out­lined that rac­ing will be held be­hind closed doors, with­out pa­trons. The ARC in­di­cat­ed that the club will abide by all the nec­es­sary health reg­u­la­tions that gov­ern­ment has in­sti­tut­ed.

Clear­ly, there is light at the end of the tun­nel as Ari­ma Race Club's (ARC) pres­i­dent Robert Bernard al­lud­ed to yes­ter­day.

"We sent the let­ter to the Min­is­ter of Health Ter­rance Deyals­ingh seek­ing to have rac­ing re­sume on June 19, even if it is be­hind closed doors. Min­is­ter Deyals­ingh re­spond­ed prompt­ly and from his re­sponse, we have got­ten the feel­ing that we will be giv­en the green light to race be­hind closed doors," said Bernard when con­tact­ed.

"Last week, we brought in per­son­nel to en­sure that the re­quired health pro­to­cols will be fol­lowed and im­ple­ment­ed. We will be able to put things in place and be ready when the de­ci­sion is made as to race or not.

"We have lost some hors­es be­cause some own­ers have pulled out of the game while oth­ers have sent their hors­es to the farm. Yes, the pop­u­la­tion would have dropped but we will tai­lor-make the pro­gramme to en­sure we have a com­pet­i­tive card on open­ing day.

"In terms of the hors­es, we have ex­tend­ed the use of the track to en­sure that train­ers could get a lit­tle more out of their hors­es. We are wait­ing with bat­ed breath for the de­ci­sion."

With horse rac­ing in some parts of the world open­ing back up slow­ly and be­hind closed doors, T&T may well fol­low the part of oth­ers. The lo­cal horse rac­ing fra­ter­ni­ty now is look­ing for­ward with an­tic­i­pa­tion of rac­ing re­sum­ing at the cen­tralised venue on Labour Day.

"The let­ter as I said is in the hands of the Min­is­ter of Health at present and it is up to him to as­sist us in any way that may be deemed pos­si­ble. I am cer­tain that we will be ready for the re­sump­tion of rac­ing which will hope­ful­ly be held soon," said Bernard.