Ludlow forced to call off its remaining fixtures for this season

Clerk of the course Simon Sherwood has vowed Ludlow will be “back stronger” after the drought-hit track was forced to cancel its remaining fixtures in the 2026-27 jumps season.

Having already lost the first three meetings of the campaign due to the after effects of the record-breaking dry summer, British Horseracing Authority course inspectors visited the Shropshire track on Thursday, with the popular venue subsequently left with little option but to wave the white flag.

Sherwood – who is perhaps most known for his association with the great Desert Orchid – explained the writing had been on the wall due to the challenges the unseasonable climate had presented, but is confident racing will resume next season once affected areas have been given the required time to recover.

Hopes are high it will be business as usual at Ludlow from October next year (Pic: Focusonracing)

He said: “It’s very sad. I feared it had been in the pipeline for the last couple of weeks when it was evident it was not recovering as well as we had hoped.

“We are a gravel-based racecourse, which is fantastic in a wet winter but struggles in dry conditions, and this summer with the extreme heat and lack of water it has presented its challenges.

“We have been limited in the amount of water we can apply due to us being dependent on a reservoir which is backed up by access to a river, and the environment agency understandably issued a hands-off.

“We flagged up we were struggling and the BHA course inspectors came out to give their opinion and although things were improving there were still areas we were concerned about when it comes to the welfare of the horse, which always has to come first and hence the decision made.”

Despite the disappointment of the current season being cut short, hopes are high it will be business as usual from October next year. In the meantime, the BHA has announced the rescheduling to other tracks of Ludlow’s 12 remaining fixtures.

Sherwood added: “The upside is we will come out the other side and we have a very good team on board who will ensure the financial longevity is available for us.

“We will be back stronger, it’s just going to mean a bit of time out I’m afraid. The ground will be fine for next season and the ground is recovering as we speak.

“But to enable for it to repair itself and stop this happening again we need to give it time and then put in the infrastructure that will ensure we don’t have these challenges again.”

Henry Daly calls the market town home and has saddled 110 Ludlow runners over the last five years.

Reacting to the announcement, he told the PA: “I can sum it up in two words – bitterly disappointing.

“I know from driving across there is no grass on it because they have these strange looking fleece things down.

“We did school three weeks ago on the grass and then twice that week and then we haven’t schooled this last Tuesday or last Friday because it has got firm again.

“We had 10 millimetres of rain on Tuesday night and we may be able to school again on the grass tomorrow (Friday), but it is definitely a problem.

“I think there are seven courses that are not racing at the moment which is frightening for mid-November isn’t it? But this is a real shame for Ludlow.”

One of the seven courses Daly references is Wincanton, forced to abandon a third consecutive meeting due to the firm ground and a lack of rainfall.

The Somerset circuit lost its popular Badger Beer Chase day earlier this month, following an earlier meeting that was transferred to Market Rasen, and now stumps have had to be drawn on the fixture on November 19.

Clerk of the course Tom Ryall said: “It’s massively frustrating. We’ve had dry summers before, but we’ve never seen it this dry in the autumn.

“Two or three weeks ago we had 89mm of rain in a week and that got us into a firm, good to firm position, but since we abandoned Badger Beer day two weeks ago on Tuesday we’ve actually only seen 8mm of rain, so it’s not really moved a lot since our last abandonment.

“We do have our reservoir, but it only refills from natural rainfall. We emptied it in April and it sat empty until probably August and it started refilling slowly when we started getting some rain, but that is sat at about 60 per cent capacity which equates to about six or seven days of 10mm of irrigation circuits around the track.

“But we wouldn’t actually use that until we were in touching distance of becoming raceable. There’s no point in using it if there isn’t a realistic hope of the fixture being on and that water alone will not make it raceable, so we need the rain to go with it.”

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