Fairyhouse 'cautiously optimistic' for Tuesday card ahead of morning inspection

Fairyhouse racecourse manager Peter Roe is "cautiously optimistic" the track can play host to the second day of its two-day meeting after Monday's card joined Stratford in succumbing to a waterlogged track.

The ground at Fairyhouse was described as raceable on Sunday evening but a further 15mm of rain forced officials to scrap the fixture at an inspection on Monday morning.

The County Meath track is still scheduled to race on Tuesday and another inspection has been called for 7.30am.

Roe said: "I'm cautiously optimistic. It'll be heavy but if you look at the entries, trainers are mad to race and I'm mad to race.

"If there's any sort of chance that we can race, we'll race. It's a dry day today and hopefully the track will be fit to race tomorrow. The rain has just been relentless recently.

"We've already exceeded the annual rainfall for each of the past three years respectively and there's still seven weeks of the 2019 left, which tells its own story."

Lingfield will stage its first jumps meeting of the season on Tuesday and is confident racing will go ahead, although the going is heavy with more rain expected.

There was 5mm of rain at the track on Saturday, and another wet day is forecast for Monday, but conditions are currently raceable for the scheduled six-race card.

Lingfield's clerk of the course George Hill said: "We're due a bit of rain tomorrow, about 4mm to 7mm, but at the moment we are raceable, so we're okay. As long as we don't get a massive amount of rain – if we get what's forecast – then we should be okay."

The ground at Ayr is described as soft, heavy in places but clerk Graeme Anderson is confident racing will go ahead as planned on Wednesday, despite heavy rain forecast to hit the course over the next 24 hours.

Ayr: racing should go ahead on Wednesday despite heavy recent rainCredit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)

"We should be absolutely fine," Anderson said on Monday. "The forecast is pretty wet for today and into tonight, but from tomorrow lunchtime it's dry again. We'll probably be on heavy ground but we don't think we should have any problems unless the forecast proves inaccurate."

Elsewhere on Wednesday, the conditions will be very testing at Bangor, the North Wales track having received 35mm of rain since Friday with another 10mm forecast on Tuesday.

Clerk Andrew Morris confirmed there were no plans for an inspection but added: "We've got more rain to come tonight and tomorrow but we're pretty confident we will be racing, albeit on pretty heavy ground."

Doncaster, which was forced to cancel its final Flat fixture of the season last weekend, is optimistic Town Moor will have sufficient time to dry out before the jumps season begins there on Friday, November 29.

The loss of the November Handicap fixture was a second blow in quick succession for the course's Flat calendar, as the Group 1 Vertem Futurity Trophy had to be rescheduled on the all-weather at Newcastle after waterlogging also claimed that meeting last month.

Clerk of the course Roderick Duncan said on Monday: "We couldn't race at the moment as there is standing water and waterlogged areas on the National Hunt course, but looking at the long-range forecasts we would be optimistic."

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