Windsor cancels Monday card six days in advance as track needs 'time to recover'

Officials at Windsor have called off next Monday's meeting six days in advance to give the track "time to recover" after recent heavy rain left the course waterlogged in places.

The Berkshire track staged racing on Monday evening on ground described as soft, heavy in places, but a further 21mm overnight has left the course unraceable.

Windsor clerk of the course Sophie Candy said on Tuesday: "Having raced on it yesterday and looking at the forecast ahead in the next week or so, we feel it was the right and sensible decision for everybody at this stage.

"We declared on good to soft on Saturday with 2 or 3mm to come and I thought we might be on the slow side of good by Monday morning, but in one wallop I got 13mm on Sunday morning, and then I got another 5mm. The course is currently waterlogged and we need to give it time to recover."

The cancellation continued a season of weather woes for Windsor, which also lost its fixture on May 24 to waterlogging, while its meeting on May 17 was abandoned before the final race due to fears over false ground.

"We've had a deluge of rain over the last four weeks or so and we're nearing 140mm of rainfall. It's been tough and our groundstaff have been working at every hour possible they could," Candy added.

"It's a cumulative effect, there's so much water underneath the track now and it's getting no time to dry out. It needs some time to recover from very unusual circumstances."

The BHA have confirmed that an additional all-weather fixture at Lingfield will instead be staged next Monday, with entries set to close on Wednesday.

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