No inspection at Newbury as a dry night forecast

Officials at Newbury are confident Saturday’s high-profile fixture will go ahead as scheduled.

The William Hill ‘Super Saturday’ card is due to stage the William Hill Denman Chase, the William Hill Game Spirit Chase and the £155,000 William Hill Hurdle on what promises to be an informative afternoon ahead of next month’s Cheltenham Festival.

While conditions are sure to be testing, clerk of the course George Hill confirmed the track was raceable on Friday afternoon, despite one area of standing water, and no inspection is planned.

Hill said: “The only big change from this morning is there is one patch of standing water, instead of two, and it very, very small – and it’s raceable anyway.

“I’ve just been out for 20 minutes and it’s due to stop raining by 5pm right through to 5am, so it looks like we’ve got a dry 10-12 hours.

“There’s no plans for an inspection because it’s currently raceable and I’ve got a dry 10-12 hours ahead.”

The Grade Two Bet Smarter With Oddschecker Kingmaker Novices’ Chase is the feature event of Warwick’s Saturday meeting and clerk of the course Nessie Chanter is optimistic it will pass a precautionary inspection at 7.30am, provided the forecast proves correct.

She said: “It seems to have been a theme of the week that the rain amount has exceeded what was forecast, so we’ve called a precautionary inspection in case that continues to be the case.

“So far today we’ve had 7mm of rain, we’re due another couple of millimetres and hopefully it’s then going to be a dry night before we have a drizzly, damp morning with another 2mm to 4mm.

“We are currently raceable and we’re confident that we can cope with what is in the forecast, but we don’t want too much more.”

There was no National Hunt racing on Friday following the abandonment of cards at Sandown and Bangor, while Saturday’s Uttoxeter has also fallen by the wayside.

Exeter brought forward an inspection and had no choice but to call off Sunday’s card after receiving 35mm of rain on Thursday and another 17mm on Friday, while Newcastle will inspect on Saturday at 9am ahead of Sunday’s jumps meeting in the north east. An extra Flat meeting at Chelmsford has been scheduled.

Across the Irish Sea at Navan, Sunday’s card is also under threat after a total of 35mm of rainfall in the last 24 hours. An inspection has been called for 3pm on Saturday.