Scottish courses hit again

SCOTTISH racing suffered another hammer blow when today’s meeting at Hamilton was abandoned due to a waterlogged track.

This follows the loss of last week’s three-day Western meeting at Ayr which was called off because of a soggy patch of ground on the home straight.

Clerk of the course Sulekha Varma called an initial inspection for 7.30am today and said the track was raceable yesterday morning, but further rain prompted her to bring the inspection forward to 4pm.

At the time of the inspection there were areas of false ground and with further rain forecast, officials have had no option but to draw stumps.

Varma said: “It’s more the intensity of the rain rather than the volume and it’s fallen on what was already soft ground after a wet summer.

“There are areas of false ground which simply aren’t safe enough to race on and we’ve got more rain forecast.

“This was our last fixture of the season, so it’s really disappointing.”

The loss of the meeting is the first the course has suffered in five years.

No problems are expected at Perth, the next meeting scheduled to take place in Scotland, on Thursday.

But the course will be hoping there will not be repeat of their last meeting when a race was declared void because a horse was fatally injured close to the winning post.