Rain washes away all of today’s jump meetings
Southwell, Carlisle and Stratford all had to admit defeat following inspections today after the recent rain left the courses waterlogged.
Stratford was the first to fall. Officials had planned a 3pm inspection but heavy overnight forced them to call off the meeting yesterday.
Clerk of the course Stephen Lambert said: “We have abandoned as parts of the course are waterlogged and we have had some heavy rain.”
Then Carlisle went. A lunchtime inspection showed the track to be unraceable after some heavy rain and the meeting was cancelled.
Clerk of the course Johnnie Fenwicke-Clennell explained: “We have failed the inspection so we have abandoned. The course is waterlogged in places and although it has been dry, it has started to rain again. There are also some patches of false ground.”
And Southwell completed the treble.
“We’ve now had a total of eight millimetres of rain this afternoon and it is still raining,” said clerk of the course Fergus Cameron yesteday.
“We’ve got false patches of ground and the landings and take-offs are becoming a bit false as well.”
And tomorrow’s meeting at Warwick has already followed suit. Officials inspected at 1pm yesterday but the course was unraceable after heavy rain left the going as Heavy with waterlogging.
Clerk of the course Robert Bellamy explained: “We have abandoned due to waterlogging on the track.
“Since we last race just over a week ago we have had 56.5mm of rain, 14mm of which came overnight.
“We were hopeful.
“But it’s still raining now.
“We next race on Saturday, January 11 so it’s all systems go towards that now.”
And tomorrow’s Fontwell’s fixture is threatened with an inspection called for 3pm today.
The going at the track is currently described as heavy, with waterlogging in places but clerk of the course Geoff Stickels reports the meeting to be “50-50” at present.
Stickels said: “We have more showers coming through but the main band of rain has passed giving us 15mm overnight and this morning.
“We are forecast some more showery outbursts, some may be heavy, so it is very much 50-50 at this time.”
No problems are as yet reported at tomorrow’s other jump meetings at Cheltenham, Catterick or on the all-weather at Wolverhampton.
But on Wednesday (New Year’s Day) Leicester have abandoned the three hurdle races. Officials at the track have added three extra chase events to the card in place of the contests over the smaller obstacles as the hurdles track looks like being unraceable.
However, the going on the chase track is described as Good to Soft, Soft in places and no problems are expected.
Clerk of the course Nick Lees said: “We had 11mm of rain overnight which forced us to take this course but it was expected. The weather should clear up in the next few hours or so.”
The three races added to the card are the Humberstone Novices’ Handicap Chase over the extended two miles, seven furlongs trip, the Parsley Novices’ Chase over two miles and the Glebe Handicap Chase over two miles, four and a half furlongs.
All races close at noon today.
And it seems likely that unless the weather improves dramatically more meetings could be called off later in the week.
The tracks at Folkestone on Thursday and Hexham on Friday are waterlogged in places.
