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Day two of the Limerick racing festival has been cancelled after 18mm of rain through Saturday night and Sunday morning left the track waterlogged.
In a statement issued by the HRI, it was confirmed that Sunday’s meeting has been cancelled and, with more rain forecast throughout the day, there will be an inspection on Monday morning at 8am ahead of day three.
Despite a similar rainfall in the east of the country, day two of the Leopardstown festival will go ahead with the Paddy Power Chase taking centre stage.
Across the water in the UK, Storm Bella also wreaked havoc on Sunday’s fixtures with Chepstow’s Coral Welsh Grand National meeting abandoned due to a waterlogged track.
The fixture has had no luck down the years on the weather front and once more course officials were forced to admit defeat.
Earlier in the week there had been optimism that the prestigious card, which also features the Grade One Coral Finale Juvenile Hurdle, would survive but a further downfall overnight from Storm Bella left the course with patches of false ground.
Clerk of the course Libby O’Flaherty inspected at 7.45am but was left with no choice but to call the meeting off.
“We’ve had another 27mm overnight and this morning, up to 7am when I was walking the track,” said O’Flaherty.
“It’s so annoying as there’s just one area of false ground down the back straight and I was trying to find a way around it but there just isn’t one.”
Speaking later in the morning O’Flaherty confirmed that the meeting would now be run on January 9.
“We’ve rescheduled for January 9. It should be like-for-like but we are just waiting for official confirmation that the card will be exactly the same,” she said.
Monday’s meeting at Leicester was also abandoned due to a waterlogged track following an inspection at 9.30am on Sunday.
Heavy rain overnight had left false patches on already heavy ground.