Leopardstown Sunday card postponed to Thursday
Limerick on Sunday has also been postponed, which was a surprise, with hopes high all week that it would beat the freeze.
“This is a nightmare situation”, admitted Leopardstown general manager, Tom Burke. “We had heavy snow here on Monday night, between 6.00 and 9.00, and there is about eight inches on the track at the moment. Yesterday (Tuesday) was a horrible day as well.
“The thaw is now supposed to come on St Stephen’s Day and the question is whether it will be enough to allow us to start on the 27th?
“We are hoping it might set in a little earlier and give us a ray of hope. We are monitoring the situation from day-to-day.”
The Grade 1 Bord na Mona With Nature Novice Chase was the St Stephens’ Day feature, which could have seen the reappearance of Mikael D’Haguenet, so unlucky to fall at the last in the Drinmore Chase at Fairyhouse when upsides eventual winner, Jessies Dream.
Horse Racing Ireland moved quickly yesterday to draw up no less than three possible contingency plans for Leopardstown.
Assuming that Monday joins Sunday and is also cancelled then the Festival will, hopefully, start on the Tuesday with its original card.
Wednesday would then house eight contests, five being included from Monday. Among those transferred from Monday would be two Grade 1’s, the Paddy Power Dial-A-Bet Chase and the paddypower.com Future Champions Novice Hurdle, and also the valuable Paddy Power Handicap Chase.
The programme for Thursday would then be the original St Stephen’s Day card.
The second plan is in the event of both Monday and Tuesday being cancelled, Leopardstown would then attempt to race on Wednesday and Thursday .
Both would have eight races, Wednesday combining the best from Monday and Wednesday and Thursday taking Sunday and Tuesday.
Finally the third plan is on the basis of the unthinkable actually happening and Leopardstown only managing to race on the Thursday.
In that case it will again be eight races, with six Grade 1’s, a Grade 2 and the Paddy Power Handicap Chase.
RTE has confirmed that it’s coverage of Leopardstown will extend to the Thursday.
Manager-Burke is dreading the possibility of losing all four days at Leopardstown. He said: “It would be significant and cost us a lot of money.
“These four days represent between 35% and 40% of our annual turnover. If we were to start on Monday it wouldn’t be so bad. We usually get a crowd of about 15,000 for the first three days and then 8,000, maybe 10,000 in a good year, the last day. Starting on Monday would certainly be a mitigating factor.”
Limerick’s optimism was dashed yesterday with the track frozen solid. Manager, Russell Ferris, reported: “We have freezing fog and minus 6 degrees.
“Val O’Connell (inspector of courses) and I walked the full track and there was no point in waiting, given the forecast temperatures.
“We will be inspecting on Sunday for Monday. We’re told it will be 3-5 degrees on Sunday and 7-8 degrees on Monday and if that’s the case we should be fine.”
Limerick will now try to race for three days, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Sunday’s Grade 2 novice chase - expected to attract the potentially high-class Quel Esprit - and the four-year-old hurdle, have both been transferred to Wednesday, December 29.
