Weather-hit Coral Welsh National rescheduled for January

Clerk of the course Keith Ottesen said the decision to cancel the card was an easy one after the track was hit with 40 millimetres of rain through Tuesday afternoon and the early hours of Wednesday.

That deluge took the total amount of rainfall in the 48 hours leading into Wednesday morning to 60 millimetres. Ottesen and his team had been expecting only around a third of that figure, which he says the course could have handled.

An inspection had been called for 7.30am on Wednesday but the decision to cancel came almost an hour earlier with conditions clearly too bad to allow any hope of racing.

Chepstow management entered discussions with The British Horseracing Authority (BHA) and the sponsors and it was confirmed shortly afterwards that the meeting will now be staged on Saturday 6 January, ironically the same date that was chosen when the 2010, 2012 and 2015 renewals were lost on their original dates.

Speaking on Wednesday morning, Ottesen said, “Yesterday, we would have raced no problem but we have had 40 millimetres since 2.00pm on Boxing Day, with a bit of snow as well.

“We’re waterlogged and flooded in places, we’ve got a lake at the bottom of the track, it’s ridiculous. We’d been positive all week because we just didn’t expect this to happen but we were never going to get the improvement needed for the rest of the day and so in that respect, it was an easy decision.

“I’ve had trainers on from Gloucestershire and some places saying they wouldn’t have been able to get here anyway because the snow is so bad as well.”

Entries for the Coral Welsh National will now revert to the original entry stage in November, meaning those who did not declare for Wednesday would be able to do so again should they wish.

The Colin Tizzard-trained Native River won last year’s Welsh National, which went ahead on the scheduled date. However, the event has a history of postponements. In 1994 the meeting was switched to Newbury, while the 1995 and 1996 races were both abandoned completely because of frost.

The 2017 postponement will be the fourth delay in eight years, with the 2010, 2012 and 2015 Welsh Nationals all taking place in the Januaries that followed with frost or waterlogging causing problems.