The death rattle of Cheltenham 2001 was being drowned last night by the noise of confusion surrounding the prospects of Irish horses being allowed to run in this week's Aintree's Grand National meeting.

Britain's biggest bookmakers, Ladbrokes, have announced they will re-introduce Irish horses, such as last year's winner Papillon, to their ante-post market this morning on a no-run, no-bet basis.

The Ladbrokes spokesman, Mike Dillon, said: "I believe a scenario will be known tomorrow (Monday) whereby horses from Ireland can come and run at Liverpool if they want to."

The move came after a day of bookmaker and media speculation in Britain, but as of last night the Government position appears to remain unchanged, and the Irish trainers association has heard nothing to contradict their position of not taking their horses to race across the water. A Department of Agriculture spokesman said: "The Minister (Joe Walsh) is on a break, but he was asked about Irish horses going to Liverpool on Friday and his advice was very clear and very specific. We are asking people not to travel and that remains the same regardless of the bookies. Maybe they know something we don't!" Willie Mullins, the chairman of the Irish Racehorse Trainers Association, was equally surprised by the renewed speculation about Irish runners being allowed to travel, and he pointed to the similarity before the original Cheltenham festival last month was postponed.

"I'm not sure what's inducing this, but the same thing happened before Cheltenham," Mullins said. "I've had a lot of media calls but I'm not aware of any such move and the situation remains the same as it was a fortnight ago when we said we wouldn't be travelling. As far as I'm concerned I'm still hoping for an April 14th start off for racing here in Ireland."

But original reports that the Minister's expert group would release the results of their meeting with the Turf Club and the Irish Horseracing Authority today would seem to have been premature. A Department spokesman said: "There is no time-scale for their report, but they will need to consider things and a decision is likely sometime later this week."

The three-day Aintree festival is scheduled to start on Thursday, with the Grand National run on Saturday. The Aintree authorities have consistently pointed out how their proximity to the city of Liverpool reduces the risk of a race meeting there spreading the foot-and-mouth virus, and they have offered intensive quarantine facilities to Irish trainers who wanted to bring their horses to Britain and then remain there.

There was more concrete news about the 2001 Cheltenham Festival, which finally bit the dust yesterday after confirmation that the racetrack is located within a new five-mile exclusion zone for foot-and-mouth.

An outbreak of the virus on Saturday near Woolstone, which is north-west of the course, finally forced the Cheltenham executive to admit defeat in their attempts to hold the meeting which had been postponed since last month. Contingency plans are being drawn up by the British Horseracing Board to run the championship races at either Liverpool or Sandown's Whitbred Gold Cup meeting.