Newbury meeting abandoned and Saturday racing threatened by Storm Austen

Friday's race meeting at Newbury has been scrapped owing to a waterlogged track, while an inspection has already been scheduled ahead of their prestigious Saturday fixture. With substantial rainfall predicted as Storm Austen batters large swathes of the nation, officials at the Berkshire venue initially arranged an inspection for 8am on Friday before the opening day of two consecutive racing days. However, with sections of the course already waterlogged by Thursday morning, clerk of the course George Hill took the swift decision to cancel the six-race programme. He said: "We had over 10mm of rain yesterday (Wednesday) and I probably wasn't expecting that much, and then we had another 4.6mm during the early hours of this morning up until 6am. "When you've had nearly 15mm on top of nearly 20mm the day before, that's just left one or two areas of the track suffering and waterlogged in places. "We had an inspection this morning and while a lot of areas are raceable, there were some areas we just couldn't get around, and looking at the forecast tonight into tomorrow that is probably going to make matters worse." Focus now turns to Newbury's final Flat meeting of the year, which is scheduled to showcase two Group 3 fixtures, the St Simon Stakes and Horris Hill Stakes. Hill has arranged an inspection for 8am on Friday and with an additional 15-30mm expected from 8pm on Thursday right through until after Saturday's racing concludes, he concedes the team are "up against it". "We've got a nice card planned on Saturday and we just want to give it an extra 24 hours, just to see if there is any improvement either in the track and mainly the forecast for Saturday afternoon," Hill added. "At the moment it looks like we'll get persistent rain throughout Saturday afternoon, but we just want to give it an extra 24 hours to be double sure before making a decision on Saturday's card. "When we inspect on Friday morning we'll know what rain we've had up to that point and know what state the ground is in, and we'll also have an up to date forecast to see if there is any opportunity for it to dry out. "If that persistent rain is still set for Saturday we're likely to be up against it, but we'll see what the next 24 hours bring."