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Newbury abandon Friday card – and inspection called ahead of Saturday
By Racing TV
Last Updated: Thu 22 Oct 2026
Friday’s meeting at Newbury has been abandoned due to a waterlogged track, while an inspection has already been called ahead of their high-profile meeting on Saturday.
With significant forecast as Storm Austen hits large parts of the country, officials at the Berkshire circuit initially called a precautionary inspection for 8am on Friday ahead of the first of two days’ racing.
However, with parts of the course already waterlogged on Thursday morning, clerk of the course George Hill made an early decision to call off the six-race card.
He said: “We had over 10mm of rain yesterday (Wednesday) and I probably wasn’t expecting that much, and then we had another 4.6mm during the early hours of this morning up until 6am.
“When you’ve had nearly 15mm on top of nearly 20mm the day before, that’s just left one or two areas of the track suffering and waterlogged in places.
“We had an inspection this morning and while a lot of areas are raceable, there were some areas we just couldn’t get around, and looking at the forecast tonight into tomorrow that is probably going to make matters worse.”
Attentions now switch to Newbury’s high-profile meeting on Saturday, which is due to feature two BetVictor-sponsored Group Three contests in the St Simon Stakes and Horris Hill Stakes.
Hill has called an inspection for 8am on Friday and with a further 15-30mm forecast from 8pm on Thursday all the way through to after racing on Saturday, he admits the team are “up against it”.
“We’ve got a nice card planned on Saturday and we just want to give it an extra 24 hours, just to see if there is any improvement either in the track and mainly the forecast for Saturday afternoon,” Hill added.
“At the moment it looks like we’ll get persistent rain throughout Saturday afternoon, but we just want to give it an extra 24 hours to be double sure before making a decision on Saturday’s card.
“When we inspect on Friday morning we’ll know what rain we’ve had up to that point and know what state the ground is in, and we’ll also have an up to date forecast to see if there is any opportunity for it to dry out.
“If that persistent rain is still set for Saturday we’re likely to be up against it, but we’ll see what the next 24 hours bring.”
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