Thursday, 5 January 2012

Weather Watch


Sedgefield are keeping a close eye on the weather ahead of this afternoon's meeting.

Trainee clerk of the course Phil Tuck reports strong winds at the track and officials will continue to monitor conditions.

He said: "The wind speed has increased since this morning and we are monitoring the situation.

"We've not got any equipment to measure the speed available at the moment but if it continues, we might have to call an inspection."


This afternoon's meeting at Lingfield goes ahead after officials cancelled their planned inspection.

Clerk of the course Neil Mackenzie Ross had called a 7.15am check but after seeing less than one millimetre of rain overnight, he is happy to give the meeting the green light.

He said: "Obviously I've walked round the course and feel that with just 0.8mm of rain, I could cancel the inspection as I was happy that the track is raceable."


Friday's meeting at Chepstow has been abandoned due to a waterlogged track.

Clerk of the course Keith Ottesen called an 8.30am inspection after the track saw plenty of rain earlier in the week.

Ottesen reports further rain at the course overnight and admits there is no chance of conditions improving in time to race.

He said: "It rained again last night and we really couldn't take any more.

"There would have been questions about whether we would be raceable without it, but a further seven millimetres overnight has put us back to where we were.

"The ground is waterlogged and there is no reasonable chance of it improving anywhere near enough to race."