Doncaster races abandoned and Saturday’s huge Group 1 card also under threat with parts of track unraceable

DONCASTER’S Friday racing has been abandoned – with tomorrow’s huge Group 1 card also under threat.

Parts of the track remain ‘saturated’ and unraceable following the deluge of heavy rain amid Storm Babet.

Southwell racecourse, above, shows the extent to which rain has battered Britain’s racecourses – with today’s meetings at Doncaster and Newmarket abandoned

Racecourses up and down the country have been left underwater, with Southwell resembling a giant lake.

Doncaster had not had it quite so bad but it has still been enough to force bosses to cancel today’s card – day one of the Futurity meeting.

A post said: “After this morning’s track inspection, due to some areas of saturated ground, unfortunately we have to abandon today’s meeting.”

It means all fingers will be crossed for an improvement in time for tomorrow’s fixture.

That is headlined by the Group 1 Kameko Futurity Trophy, the final top level race of the season on the Flat.

Future Derby winner Auguste Rodin won it last year and Aidan O’Brien sends Diego Velazquez over this time too.

But it may prove futile should the track be hit with any more rain, with clerk of the course Paul Barker admitting: “We can’t take a great deal more.”

Today’s meeting at Newbury has also been abandoned but racing returns to Cheltenham for the first day of its Showcase meeting.

Barker added: “You can’t beat the weather. I said yesterday we couldn’t take a lot more rain and we got 2.3mm overnight – that doesn’t sound like a lot but it took us to over 85mm in the last week.

“There is an area on the inside rail in the straight that is not raceable.

“We will be railing out approximately six yards from the inside down the straight to put the saturated areas out of bounds.

“Further updates will follow but we could have an inspection this afternoon to check that has worked.

“Forecasters are saying it should be dry today, but they haven’t been 100 per cent accurate this week!”

Doncaster – which welcomed King Charles for the first time last month for its St Leger meeting – due to host seven races on Friday.

Tomorrow’s seven-race card is due off at 1.35pm with the Futurity, worth over £125,000 to the winner, set to be run at 2.10pm.

Charlie Appleby’s Ancient Wisdom is the 13-8 fav with Diego Velazquez 9-4.

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