Market Rasen given all-clear for Tuesday and Punchestown inspects for Wednesday

Market Rasen has passed its Monday afternoon inspection ahead of Tuesday's seven-race card.

A deluge of overnight rain on Sunday led to a 4pm inspection on Monday, with a further inspection pencilled in for Tuesday morning.

However, after a dry and windy day on Monday clerk of the course Jack Pryor was satisfied that the areas of standing water had sufficiently cleared at the Lincolnshire track in time for racing on Tuesday, with the first race due off at 1.00.

Market Rasen Tuesday card

Pryor said on Monday: "It's great news. We're happy to give it the all-clear after seeing some significant improvement throughout the day.

"We had some small areas of standing water this morning following 36mm of rain since Friday. We've had a really breezy day and some blue skies on occasion so it's dried up nicely. I don't have any concern with the forecast now and I'm not foreseeing any more issues."

However, the news was less promising for Pryor's former track Huntingdon, which is due to hold a six-race card on Thursday.

Parts of the Cambridgeshire course have been damaged by the relentless inclement weather, with clerk of the course Roderick Duncan saying on Monday: "We have significant damage to our stable yard. We will be running with reduced stable capacity, details of which will be announced following further inspections and consultation with the BHA course inspectorate."

'It's incredible really'

As well as Navan's rearranged Boyne Hurdle card, Southwell and Taunton are set to race on Tuesday with the latter rewarded with a healthy 82 runners, including Martin Pipe runner-up Langer Dan.

Clerk of the course Jason Loosemore said on Monday: "Like everybody we had bits of plastic blown everywhere. Wings, some rails that were blown over, spare hurdles tossed 20 or 30 yards. Just general chaos really.

"We'll put it all back together and be ready for tomorrow. We didn't get a lot of rain as the wind kept batting it through pretty sharpish so we’re good to soft ground. It's incredible really."

Punchestown inspects

Punchestown will hold a 7.30am inspection on Wednesday morning ahead of its eight-race card that afternoon.

The ground is officially heavy, with areas of the track partially waterlogged, but a good weather forecast is giving grounds for optimism.

Wednesday's other jumps meetings Doncaster and Ludlow are expected to go ahead as normal with no weather-related issues foreseen at this stage.

Monday's meeting at Carlisle went ahead as planned after the track passed its morning inspection despite significant rainfall overnight.

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