Saturday 5 May 2012

Rain, Rain Go Away!

Tuesday's meeting at Newcastle has been abandoned due to a waterlogged track. A total of 150 millimetres of rain fell at the course in April, leaving the ground waterlogged and unraceable in places. Further rain is forecast over the weekend, so clerk of the course James Armstrong has made an early decision to call off the fixture. He said: "We had a look and we had our course inspector here and we are still a long way off being raceable. "We've got a forecast of further rain, upwards of another half an inch, in the next two or three days. We are fighting a losing battle." The British Horseracing Authority has announced an additional fixture at Southwell to fill the gap. Warwick's fixture on Bank Holiday Monday is subject to an 8.30am inspection on Saturday. The course is waterlogged in places following 103 millimetres of rainfall throughout April and the situation was compounded by further 16mm of rain on Thursday. Clerk of the course Sulekha Varma said: "The situation has gradually deteriorated as the week has gone on. Thursday's rain has left us in an unraceable state, with large areas of false ground and some waterlogging. "If there is some improvement on Saturday morning, we might look again on Sunday, but it's not looking great."