Cheltenham season over as final three meetings cancelled for drainage upgrade

Cheltenham racecourse have announced the final three fixtures of the season at the track have been cancelled to allow for an upgrade of the drainage system in the home straight.

There was a long delay to a meeting at the course in January after a hole appeared which was later attributed to a collapsed drain.

Work was carried out to allow the Cheltenham Festival to go ahead without incident but the two-day fixture in April (15 and 16) and the all-Hunter Chase card on May 1 will no longer run.

After consultation between several teams it was felt that now was the best time of year to carry out the work as there was still moisture in the ground to aid recovery.

Clerk of the course Jon Pullin said: “Our priority is always to provide the best possible racing surface for top-class jump racing. Throughout the very wet winter, we have experienced a number of issues on the track and working with drainage experts, we have identified an area that would benefit from being upgraded.

“This will allow us to address the issues that we believe contributed to the hole appearing on Festival Trials Day and subsequently created challenges in other areas of the track. As a result of this we moved rail and hurdle positions to ensure we were providing the best surface for both the Old and New courses.

“While some sections of drains across the track are newer than others and drainage improvements like this are typically carried out at the end of each season, given the scale of this project and the last two particularly dry summers we have decided to bring this work forward. This will mean that there is still sufficient moisture in the ground allowing more time for the course to recover ahead of next season.”

While the April meeting will not be saved, four key races have been rescheduled with Market Rasen, Warwick and Sandown the beneficiaries. The Hunter Chase fixture has been moved in its entirety to Warwick on the same date.

Chief executive Guy Lavender said: “This was a decision that we gave a great deal of consideration to and, while we appreciate that racegoers will share in our disappointment at not being able to stage our last three fixtures of the season, it is vital to give the racing surface time to recover and allow our grounds team to prepare the track for October and next season’s jumps programme.”