Heavy rain has forced Newton Abbot to cancel its Monday meeting and is threatening another fixture at Windsor, where a morning inspection has been scheduled.
A file pic of Windsor Racecourse
The Racing Post reports that an inspection had initially been scheduled for 7am on Monday morning at Newton Abbot, but an early decision was taken to cancel the six-race jumps card on Sunday evening with the ground waterlogged.
Speaking after the decision was made, clerk of the course Jason Loosemore said: “It’s not been biblical, but it’s been a wet afternoon with 14mm of rain since we walked it at around 2.30pm and it was set to be heavy rain overnight until around 2am.
“It was a no-brainer decision in the end really. It’s been a funny old summer with watering then heavy rain spells. Some of the winter tracks might be wanting this rain, but it’s very frustrating for us.”
Windsor will hold an inspection at 7.30am due to the prospect of heavy rain on Monday morning. The going was soft, heavy in places on Sunday afternoon.
“We walked this morning and the ground had dried up a bit,” said clerk of the course Charlie Rees. “We’ve had a nice drying wind, which will obviously help us. However, when the second model came through this morning there’s an uncertain amount of rain so we called an inspection so everyone knows we’re not sure how much rain we’re going to get in the morning.
“Credit needs to go to the groundstaff at Windsor. We’ve had 24 meetings this season, more than 1,500 runners and the course is in tip-top shape, which has allowed it to take more than 133mm of rain this week, which is pretty phenomenal.”
