Cheltenham officials are confident of making an announcement today regarding the re-scheduled Festival. Managing director Edward Gillespie has promised to end the uncertainty over the fate of this year's jumping showpiece.

The choice for the three-day Festival rests between April 17th-19th or April 24th-26th. But the preferred choice - April 24th-26th - will clash with the Punchestown Festival if the Government allows that meeting to go ahead.

The other three-day slot has complications as it comes in Easter week and overlaps with Newmarket's Craven meeting.

Gillespie said: "The whole thing keeps swinging one way and then the other.

"At one time it looked like we'd be in a position to make an announcement tonight but now it'll probably be tomorrow.

"As it stands there will be a Festival on one of those two weeks. We intend to have all the 20 races. The idea of perhaps just having the Champion Hurdle and Gold Cup was something that would have only been considered a long way down the line.

"I would say that as long as Cheltenham doesn't fall within an exclusion zone or racing is completely banned there will be a Festival this year."

Gillespie was visiting the Queen's Hotel in Cheltenham - at the time the meeting would have been starting under normal circumstances.

He met the Tory leader William Hague who talked to townspeople affected by the abandonment of the meeting.

"It's been difficult today knowing that the meeting should have been taking place but we've tried to put it out of our minds and just carry on with our work," Gillespie added.

French racing is set to continue despite the first cases of foot-and-mouth disease being confirmed in that country yesterday.

The sport has been stopped in two departements, including Mayenne where the outbreak has occurred, but there are no plans to halt racing elsewhere in the country, or to stop horses travelling between Britain and France.

Meanwhile the Government here has reiterated its call for horses and racegoers not to travel to Britain until 30 days after the last outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease there.

That would mean there being no Irish participation at the three-day Martell Grand National meeting which starts on April 5th.

Department of Agriculture press officer Paul Savage said: "All along we have asked for people not to travel to Cheltenham and for racing generally in England. That has been our advice since the start of the outbreak and that has not changed."