Racing: A Grand National washout

Heavy rain in the past three days in Christchurch has led to the cancellation of today's Canterbury Jockey Club's (CJC) meeting at Riccarton.

The meeting was to have featured the $60,000 Grand National Hurdles but the day's racing was called off following an inspection of the track yesterday by a stipendiary steward, club officials, jockeys and trainers.

What they found was waterlogged conditions following almost continual rain over the past three days.

CJC racing manager Jim Langan said it was generally considered track conditions had deteriorated to the point there was potential danger if racing went ahead.

"Particularly in the view of stipes and jockeys, surface water on the track made it unsuitable for racing," Langan said.

"It had a potential to be unsafe and given the weather conditions nothing was going to change by tomorrow morning."

Langan said rain measurements for the Riccarton track were already approaching the average for a full year.

He said average annual rainfall at Riccarton was about 600mm but the figure so for this year was more than 500mm. As a result the water table was very high.

"It has topped on a track that was already nearing saturation - the water level is that high," Langan said.

There had been 50mm of rain recorded at the track since Sunday and Langan said there was considerable rain when the track inspection was being carried out yesterday.

"We were probably out there for an hour and the rain gauge went up another 4mm," he said.

The weather had not lived up to predictions.

"The weather has been a lot worse than the forecasts have suggested. They kept saying showers but clearing.

"It hasn't been showers. It has just rained all day for basically three days."

Langan, who has been with the CJC for more than 20 years, said it was the first time a day of the Grand National meeting had been cancelled.

"There have been various others but not a Grand National meeting," he said.

"We are here to run if we can. If it had just been a very heavy track we would have certainly been going ahead.

"But when it comes to a safety issue with jockeys and horses we have to be lead by them."

Not all of tomorrow's races have been lost.

The Grand National Hurdles (4200m) has been transferred to the third and final day of the meeting this Saturday to give an 11-race programme. That will make for a double Grand National programme with the $60,000 Grand National Steeplechase (5600m) to be run on the same day.

Also on Saturday's programme are two $35,000 special maiden races, one over 1400m and the other over 1800m.

- NZPA