Doncaster and Newbury confident of go-ahead for Friday after Taunton is lost

Officials at Doncaster and Newbury are confident about the prospects of their jumps cards going ahead on Friday after the weather claimed Thursday's Taunton card.

Taunton was hit with 10mm of overnight rain, which left the track sodden and with false patches of ground, but conditions were kinder to Ludlow, which survived its early-morning inspection.

Read a preview of Ludlow's big race

Doncaster is due to race on Friday and Saturday and the ground was described as soft, good to soft in places on Thursday morning, when clerk of the course Roderick Duncan said: "I'm optimistic about tomorrow.

"I don't anticipate any problems on the current forecasts. There is significant rain Friday into Saturday so the ground is likely to be testing on Saturday, but, at the moment, I'm not anticipating any problems."

Newbury is also in action on Friday and Saturday and Duncan's counterpart there Keith Ottesen said: "It did snow for a little bit this morning, but it was just wet snow and it was mainly rain.

"We've had 7mm this morning and the rest of today is going to be dry, and dry overnight, but it's going to rain tomorrow during racing. We should be fine though. It rains again on Saturday morning, but that clears out and we should be fine too."

The ground at Newbury was soft on Thursday morning.

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