Storm Ciara causes havoc as today's cards are wiped out in Britain and Ireland

Storm Ciara has continued to wreak havoc in Britain and Ireland today.

Following the cancellation of all three of Sunday's cards in the morning, Monday's meeting at Catterick was called off this afternoon after the local river burst its banks.

Plumpton will hold an inspection at 8am on Monday to determine whether their meeting will take place in the afternoon, while Lingfield has already called off its jumps card for Tuesday.

Both today's British meetings at Exeter and Southwell were cancelled due to strong winds reaching an unsafe level, with Punchestown forced to abandon its seven-race card following flash floods which brought 27mm of rain in the space of an hour.

Brendan Sheridan, clerk of the course at Punchestown, said this morning: "Unfortunately in the last half an hour we've had flash flooding. We were expecting 5-10mm of rain after speaking to the Met Eireann earlier this morning, but we had 27mm. Parts of the track are waterlogged so the meeting has been cancelled."

Exeter was scheduled to stage two Listed contests and the first leg of the 2020 veterans' series, but will look to restage these events. The racecourse, and the surrounding areas, also suffered a powercut at 9am this morning.

Exeter's clerk of the course Daniel Cooper said: "I was on site from 5.30am where we found the wind was okay in the grandstands. Our concerns were specifically in the back straight, gusts were over 40mph. Our independent panel met at 6.45am and we walked the course.

"I couldn't guarantee course equipment was going to remain safe, with stabilised wings already blown over, and I'm not sure we were comfortable to let people on site."

Southwell abandoned its all-weather meeting having called an inspection after reporting strong winds.

Looking further ahead, Lingfield's meeting on Tuesday has also been cancelled due to waterlogging.

Clerk of the course at the Surrey track George Hill said: "It's unraceable at the moment with patches of false ground and we're expecting about 10-20mm between now and Tuesday.

"We had 3mm last night and it's still raining. We've been struggling all week with it, so it was quite an easy straightforward decision."

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