Lightning and torrential rain almost force abandonment

Torrential rain along with thunder and lightning almost forced officials at Yarmouth to abandon the meeting on safety grounds as electrical units around the course were badly affected.

Although the first race was off at the advertised time of 1.50, the remainder of the card was eventually allowed to take place but races were delayed by 30 minutes on safety grounds with clerk of the course Richard Aldous describing the afternoon as “challenging”.

He said: “We had 18mm plus of rain in quite a short period of time and that forced us to change the going from good to firm to soft by 2.30, and the lightning strikes knocked out all the TVs at the course along with the big screen.