Officials at Welsh Grand National track Chepstow will hold an inspection ahead of the rescheduled meeting on Saturday with snow forecasted in the coming days that could force the Welsh track to cancel the prestigious meeting for a second time.
The feature meeting in Wales was set to take place as usual on 27th December, but with the track waterlogged after adverse weather throughout the Christmas period, the track located the 9th January as the next viable date to stage the meeting.
However, now two weeks on from the original date the meeting has been put into question again with frost and snow forcing clerk of the course Libby O’Flaherty to call a precautionary check for 2.30pm on Friday.
(Credit ATR) She said: “We’ve called a precautionary inspection because from midday until mid-afternoon (on Friday) we’ve got snow forecast.
PRECAUTIONARY INSPECTION - at 2.30pm tomorrow for @coral Welsh Grand National meeting. No frost currently under the covers laid across the entire course. Temps -1C tonight. Snow showers forecast tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/g8csbSyZZ1
— Chepstow Racecourse (@Chepstow_Racing) January 7, 2021
“We’re currently raceable. The course is completely covered and we’ve got great grass cover. There’s a little bit of leaf frost this morning, but there’s no frost in the ground.
“We could get one centimetre of snow (on Friday), we could get 10 or we could get nothing at all.
“We’re just managing expectations.”
Chepstow will be hoping to get racing on with a stellar card in the offing and hoping not to follow the likes of Ludlow, Ayr, Musselburgh, Clonmel and possibly Wincanton who are in the same boat as Chepstow.