Inspections called for Haydock and Wincanton as Storm Eunice bites

Following abandonments at Fakenham, Lingfield and Southwell on Friday, the Borders track at Kelso was the only place where racing in Britain was possible.

Fakenham was first to go, when officials decided on Thursday that is was safest to abandon Friday's action in light of the forecast. Then, all weather cards at Lingfield and Southwell both fell by the wayside as a result of the likely conditions.

Haydock's clerk Kirkland Tellwright is hoping the worst of the weather will have passed through by the time racing is due to take place on Saturday.

An 8am precautionary check has been called due to the threat of further rain on already heavy ground.

He said: "The main concern around this stormy weather has been the wind, which would be a problem on a raceday but shouldn't be an issue the day before.

"I think when Saturday comes it'll be blustery, but having walked the course a couple of times, I'm pretty optimistic that we'll get through."

The track puts on one of its biggest days of the jumps season with this fixture, a day that includes Grade 2s with the Rendlesham Hurdle and the Albert Bartlett Novices' Hurdle, plus the Grade 3 Haydock Park Grand National Trial.

Daniel Cooper, clerk of the course at Wincanton, has had no option but to call a check for 7.30am, with damage to the site meaning the course is not currently fit to stage racing.

He said: "We had a bad hour from around midday to 1pm, which caused some immediate damage.

"We're currently in a position where we are unraceable, so my head groundsman is trying to draft in a team to try to fix what is broken.

"The ground is in a lovely place, severe wind is the issue and we've had a bit more damage than we were probably anticipating.

"We're drafting a recovery plan for Saturday morning which involves having staff in from first thing and we'll rally around to try to fix things."