Fakenham and Dundalk cancel Friday cards due to warning of 'unprecedented' storm

Friday's meetings at Fakenham and Dundalk have been called off because of the threat of Storm Eunice and the remaining British fixtures at Kelso, Lingfield and Southwell are also in doubt.

Extremely high winds are expected, in a storm hailed by ITV forecaster Lucy Verasamy as one of the worst for 30 years, and Fakenham elected to cancel racing ahead of time – a move mirrored by Dundalk officials, who have postponed Friday's fixture until Monday.

Fakenham's chief executive David Hunter said: "We have decided to cancel Friday's meeting in view of the amber warning that has been put out for Storm Eunice, which is danger to life.

"We have been forecast winds between 70 and 80 miles an hour between midday and 3pm tomorrow and I just think it would be irresponsible of us to consider putting a race meeting on, for travel especially.

"We would have people and horses travelling from all over the country which would be dangerous and even if they get here it would be dangerous with the possibility of flying debris.

Friday's cards and betting

"This is unprecedented. In 25 years I've never had a meeting that has been affected by such strong winds. This is a serious storm and I think we've made the correct decision to call it early so people can plan ahead.

"If someone was injured we would be in a very poor position and people would question why we were putting on a race meeting in the middle of a weather bomb."

Safety was also paramount for Jim Martin, chief executive of Dundalk Stadium, who said: "Following consultation with Met Eireann, and in light of the weather warning in place, we have had to cancel our Friday fixture on safety grounds.

"The main issue is travel. They felt it wasn't safe for lorries bringing horses to the races to be travelling on roads given the winds that are forecast. We were forecast to get winds of 80km per hour during racing, but the main issue is travel and that's why we've made the call."

Fresh declarations for the rescheduled card are due on Saturday, while Friday's meeting at Kelso is subject to an inspection set for 8am on raceday.

Clerk of the course Matthew Taylor said: "We will hold a precautionary inspection due to the adverse weather forecast overnight and tomorrow. A yellow weather warning has been issued for our region by the Met office for tomorrow – high winds and snow."

Southwell: officials are 'quite concerned with the forecast weather' before Friday's cardCredit: Tim Goode (Pool (Getty Images))

Storm Eunice is also threatening Friday's Flat racing in Britain and there will be a 10am inspection at Southwell.

Executive director Mark Clayton said: "We're quite concerned with the forecast weather. We could get 70-80 mile-an-hour winds tomorrow.

"We're taking all the precautions we can to make sure we're giving the meeting every opportunity of going ahead but we are in the lap of the gods.

"We've inspected all the buildings and anything that's got a chance of moving in the wind we've either moved ourselves or made sure it's firmly fixed."

There is an 8am inspection at Lingfield, where clerk of the course George Hill said: "They've issued an amber weather warning and it looks as though we're going to be fairly windy with strong gusts at times. It will make conditions tricky and we'll just have to see how things go tomorrow.

"We'll make the site as secure as it can be, we've removed all the sponsorship branding and so on."

Monday's jumps card at Lingfield has already been called off due to waterlogging.

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