Having already lost the first two days of the four-day fixture, clerk of the course William Derby called a noon inspection for today to assess the prospects for the cards on Thursday and Friday.

However, with further rain this morning and no sign of significant improvement in the near future, officials were left with no option but to cancel the cards for the rest of the week.

Mr Derby said: "Unfortunately we have had to abandon the rest of the meeting as the track is waterlogged in places and there is no prospect of it drying out.

"It is obviously disappointing, both for the connections of the horses and the whole team so I am so sorry about that.

"It's hugely frustrating and to be beaten by the elements is a very humbling experience.

"We're determined to carry on with our drainage project to help guard against this in the future.

"We have had an unbelievable amount of rainfall and the course could just not take any more.

"We had a shower this morning and that has just compounded the situation.

"The British Horseracing Authority will be looking into rescheduling races and we will help them where we can but our main focus is just to deal with the aftermath of what has happened to the track."

Head of marketing James Brennan said: "All of the Ebor Festival has now been abandoned.

"We had a look at the track again this morning, conscious of trying to make a decision as early as possible.

"The track remains unraceable and the weather forecasts are, at best, changeable. You can find some more encouraging ones and some that are more doom and gloom but it is certainly not a picture of a dry two days to come.

"We had a shower this morning but up until then it had been dry since yesterday's wet weather, and it is not the best of English summers.

"In terms of the feature races, we are in direct communication with BHA director of racing Ruth Quinn, who remains in York, and we have been talking to her all morning about the evolving situation.

"In the end the weather had beaten us which is hugely disappointing for connections of horses who had looked forward to an Ebor Festival which promised record prize money, and of course to the racegoers who looked forward to coming to the Ebor Festival.

"In terms of the future of those Group races, we are working with other racecourse partners and we will continue to address that and an announcement on that will follow as the day works on in terms of whether we can find homes for the feature contests.

"There are lots of permutations to be had about that and we will see if we can find a home to stage those feature races in the short few days."

Quinn explained that the races which could be saved are likely to be split between Newmarket and Newbury on Friday and Newmarket and Goodwood on Saturday.

York chairman Nicholas Wrigley added that he thought the meeting would probably have survived the elements had the new £2.5 million drainage system been in place.

Further work on that infrastructure is due to start this weekend and will force the track to remain closed until the Dante fixture next May.

He said: "We are very sorry for everybody, but I feel especially sorry for William and his team as they have worked incredibly hard.

"It is also very disappointing to hear suggestions about our motives for racing to be abandoned.

"There is no financial incentive for us to abandon. We are here to race and we want to race, and in the sense that we are a not-for-profit organisation then the whole committee does want to race.

"We are all here as we love racing and we love racing at York. The decision we had today was if the track was raceable on Thursday and whether it was worth going through the agonises of prolonging it for another day, and the possibility of racing Friday and Saturday.

"You only have to look at the level of the river and the water table, and the further severe weather warning we have just received for more rain.

"In life you always have difficult decisions but this one was quite straightforward.

"I am extremely grateful that we have got the drainage scheme in operation and we are now looking at seeing if we can start the new drainage work on Friday rather than Saturday."