Ayr Racecourse was due to stage the Sky Bet Sunday Series this week (Image: Getty)
A major horse racing event that was due to be screened by ITV this week has been cancelled with immediate effect. The broadcaster was expected to show the Sky Bet Sunday Series, a high-profile flat fixture at Ayr Racecourse. However, organisers have been forced to pull the plug on the meeting after the track was left ‘unraceable’.
The track hosted the Scottish Grand National last weekend, with 20/1 outsider Kap Vert claiming an unlikely victory. Since then, a prolonged spell of bad weather has prevented the course from drying out properly. With the track sodden and no chance of recovering in time for the Sunday Series, the event has been cancelled at short notice.
In a statement, Ayr Racecourse said: “It’s with considerable disappointment that we’ve had to announce the early abandonment of our much-awaited Sky Bet Sunday Series fixture, scheduled to be run here at Ayr on Sunday, April 26.
“Unfortunately, due to a prolonged spell of wet weather, our flat track remains unraceable at the present time and, after close consultation with the BHA, the decision was taken to act before the entry stage for the meeting and give everyone as much notice as possible of the fixture’s abandonment.”
It’s not the first time a major fixture has been cancelled at Ayr in recent years. Back in 2017, organisers were forced to abandon the Gold Cup card, one of the biggest betting days of the season outside the major festivals.
Officials were forced to act due to a ‘mystery’ waterlogging, although steps were taken in a desperate bid to dry out the track.
A helicopter was sourced and flown over boggy areas of the course, but it didn’t make enough of a difference to stop the meeting from being scrapped.
Last weekend, officials at Brighton were forced to cancel their first flat fixture of the season due to a ‘damaged track’, while Cheltenham abandoned its final three meetings of the season to allow urgent work to be carried out.
The event has been cancelled with the track deemed ‘unraceable’ (Image: Getty)
The work, to upgrade the existing drainage and repair a hole on the track, will take place on a large segment of the straight on both courses ahead of the new jumps season starting in October.
Jon Pullin, head of racing at Cheltenham and clerk of the course, said: “Our priority is always to provide the best possible racing surface for top-class jump racing.
“Throughout the very wet winter, we have experienced a number of issues on the track and working with drainage experts, we have identified an area that would benefit from being upgraded.
“This will allow us to address the issues that we believe contributed to the hole appearing on Festival Trials Day and subsequently created challenges in other areas of the track.
“As a result of this, we moved rail and hurdle positions to ensure we were providing the best surface for both the Old and New courses.
“While some sections of drains across the track are newer than others and drainage improvements like this are typically carried out at the end of each season, given the scale of this project and the last two particularly dry summers we have decided to bring this work forward.”
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