Rising river levels force Wetherby to hold inspection for day one of Charlie Hall meeting

Rising water levels as a result of Storm Ciaran have thrown Wetherby's Friday fixture into doubt after the course called for a morning inspection before its two-day meeting.

The track, which is due to host the Charlie Hall Chase on Saturday, is grappling with standing water, which has reached the racing line due to the drainage dykes becoming backlogged.

While the rain has finally stopped at the West Yorkshire course, clerk Jonjo Sanderson must now wait to see if river levels will reduce in enough time to allow racing to go ahead on Friday.

"My fear of rising river levels and drainage dykes that have reached capacity has gone to another level," Sanderson said. "The water is now backing up and spilling on to the track and it's reached the racing line.

"While it's not flooded, it's more than a puddle. It's got to the areas of ground I didn't expect it to as the cumulative effect of two days of bad weather.

"Thankfully, the rain has passed us now and the river levels are set to peak by 8pm this evening. If they start to drop then we could see a different story tomorrow, but at the moment we're at our lowest point."

Sanderson is optimistic over the prospect of Saturday's card, which features the return of Bravemansgame, but is unsure how the track will recover for Friday's fixture.

He said: "We have dry weather now, but we could still be reaping the effects of the bad weather in 12 hours. That's the conundrum we're dealing with. I'm hoping we'll see an improvement by 7am, but whether it'll clear for racing, I don't know.

"Fast forward to Saturday and we have an extra day, that's a huge amount of time for the water to leave the track. Friday will be a breezy day with sunshine, which should safeguard Saturday, but it's just a waiting game."

Storm Ciaran has left thousands of homes without power in England and has resulted in over 200 flood warnings and alerts across the country, with high winds and significant rainfall already impacting race fixtures this week.

Lingfield became the latest track to join the list of cancelled fixtures on Thursday alongside Friday's meeting at Ffos Las, while a 7.30am inspection on Friday has been called for Huntingdon on Sunday.

Ascot: tracks forms ITV coverage on Saturday alongside WetherbyCredit: Edward Whitaker

Wetherby is one of two jumps meetings set to be broadcast on ITV this Saturday alongside Ascot, where conditions are soft, with heavy places on the hurdle course. While more showers are expected, clerk of the course Chris Stickels is hopeful the track will continue to avoid the extreme weather.

"We've had about 3mm since this morning and in the last 24 hours we've had about 24mm," he said on Thursday afternoon.

"We've showers forecast for Friday, while on Saturday we're expecting some heavy rain. We're looking at soft ground and we'll see whether it's heavy in places on both tracks come Saturday. At the moment, the worst of the weather has been going around us, so I think we've been quite fortunate."

Meetings at the Curragh and Newmarket this weekend are set to be staged on testing ground, with both tracks reporting heavy going, while conditions are soft at Cork for Sunday's jumps card.

"We got 11mm of rain on Tuesday evening and 3mm last night," said Cork's racecourse manager Eoghan O'Grady. "They are giving approximately 8-10mm between now and racing. We've escaped the worst of it and it's soft at the moment, so we're not expecting it to get much worse."

Read these next:

Gerri Colombe's return on hold as heavy rain forces Down Royal to postpone Champion Chase meeting 

The former 310,000gns Juddmonte buy who slipped to a rating of 39 - then won four races on the spin 

Get set for the jumps! Join Members' Club now with 50% off just in time for the Big Jump Off and our brilliant stable tours 

Do you want £400+ of free bets? Racing Post have got the best offers, all in one place. Visit racingpost.com/freebets to find out more