The foot-and-mouth outbreak in Co Louth has left the racing industry in this country fretting on its hoped-for April 14th comeback date, but the Government last night advised there is currently no change in its position on the sport.

A Department of Agriculture spokesman said: "Last week's recommendations haven't changed. Horseracing is a category three risk and it is being kept under review. The Irish Horseracing Authority announced plans to resume at Easter and that hasn't changed."

The guidelines surrounding other category sports allowed the Minister for Agriculture, Joe Walsh, to say yesterday that last week's relaxation of restrictions could continue but the situation surrounding racing is less clear.

The news from Louth was a blow to the Irish Horseracing Authority who had been preparing yesterday to release details of their revised fixture list.

That plan was abandoned and a spokesperson declared that racing's ruling body are waiting for instruction from the Department of Agriculture who had not officially signalled their intention to lift restrictions on racing at Easter even before yesterday's news from Co Louth.

Fairyhouse is scheduled to host the Powers Gold Label Irish Grand National on Easter Monday (April 16th) and the racetrack's manager Dick Sheil described yesterday as "nerve-wrecking".

Fairyhouse's comparatively close proximity to Co Louth is a concern for the track authorities and while plans are going ahead to begin the Fairyhouse Festival on Easter Sunday, a contingency plan to reschedule the Festival is being considered.

"The one thing about all this rain is the ground could be good enough to allow us move the dates to early May if we had to. How that might impact on the Grand National is debatable but it would be important to run the race and we're not throwing our hat at the idea yet," added Sheil.

There has been no horseracing in Ireland since the Naas fixture on February 25thand the outlook for any Easter resumption looks to depend on the Minister for Agriculture's expert committee on risk restrictions. The racing authorities had hoped to begin the sport again on April 14th with meetings at Leopardstown and Cork.