Wetherby racing off due to waterlogged track

CANCELLED: Wetherby Racecourse was forced to cancel the second day of its Christmas Meeting due to rain. Picture: Nigel French/PA

OFFICIALS at Wetherby were left with no option but to abandon the second day of the track’s William Hill Yorkshire Christmas Meeting due to a waterlogged track.

The West Yorkshire circuit played host to its traditional Boxing Day fixture on Tuesday, with the Venetia Williams-trained Fontaine Collonges taking the featured Rowland Meyrick Handicap Chase.

Another seven-race card was due to take place on Wednesday, with the William Hill Castleford Chase the main event, but significant rainfall overnight has left standing water on parts of the track and clerk of the course Jonjo Sanderson has been forced to draw stumps.

He said: “The forecasters said we’d get 20 millimetres (of rain) in a 12 to 15 hour period from around 3am to 3pm or 4pm this afternoon, but when I got here just after 6am we’d had nine millimetres and that’s already doubled in the next three hours.

“It’s just the volume of rain we’ve had in that timeframe really and we’ve got another 10 millimetres still to come according to the forecast.

“There isn’t a fence down the back straight we could jump due to the ground being saturated and areas of false ground.”

Leicester’s meeting on Thursday is also under threat, with a precautionary inspection announced for 3.45pm this afternoon due to a “forecast of continuous rain on Wednesday”.

The chase races at Uttoxeter on New Year’s Eve have already been called off, meaning the Staffordshire venue will now stage an all hurdle and bumper card.