Persistent rain puts more meetings in jeopardy

PA Sport Reporters
April 3, 2024 3:57 pm

Southwell and Wetherby are facing Thursday inspections.

Tomorrow’s National Hunt meeting at Southwell and Friday’s jumps card at Wetherby will need to survive inspections to go ahead.

While the Flat season is now under way, the persistent rain is playing havoc with the new campaign, with the meeting at Nottingham on Wednesday abandoned.

Catterick’s card did go ahead after passing an inspection but there is no sign of the wet weather abating and Southwell has called a precautionary check for 7.30am.

The course is currently raceable, but should more rain than the forecast showers fall overnight, then there may be an issue.

There is a jumps meeting at Warwick where the ground is heavy but no inspection is currently planned.

It is a similar story at Fontwell on Friday but at Wetherby there are “multiple areas of standing water/waterlogged ground”.

An inspection will be held at 3pm on Thursday after 7mm of rain fell on Tuesday night and a further 6mm arrived through Wednesday up to 1pm. The forecast for Thursday is mainly dry but another 11mm is forecast for Thursday night.

Kelso are also keeping an eye on the situation ahead of their Premier meeting on Saturday.

A post on social media read: “We are closely monitoring the weather conditions with regard to racing on Saturday. We will be in a better position to assess the impact of today’s rainfall by Thursday morning, when declarations will be made for Saturday’s races.”