'We had to make an early call' - heavy rain forces Carlisle to cancel racing

Monday's meeting at Carlisle has been cancelled following heavy rainfall overnight with more expected throughout the day.

Officials were due to hold an inspection 8am, but after walking the track before that, a decision was made to call the six-race card off.

Clerk of the course Sulekha Varma said: "We walked the track as normal at 6am this morning and we've had 1mm of rain overnight.

"It started to rain quite heavily from 5am this morning and there were a few areas of concern on the chase course and a section of the hurdle course where we had no way round," she added.

With further rain expected throughout the day, Varma said it was not a hard decision to make.

"With the rain that was forecast all day, there was really no prospect of it improving and we had to make an early call.

"If we had a dry day ahead or the rain was clearing this morning, it might have been a different story. However, it was in for the day and it wasn't a difficult call to make in the end," she added.

The Cumbria track has had just over 30mm of rain since the start of the month, resulting in officials not needing to water either the hurdle or chase course.

"The hurdlers start their season on the Flat track and that has been watered because of the dry summer, but the hurdle course we were due to race on today was going to be our first day on the inner course, and the chase course haven't been watered on," said Varma.

"We're not getting rain on top of watered ground like other tracks, we're racing on naturally produced ground because we're in a wetter part of the country."

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