Weather Prospects:Leopardstown's Pierse Hurdle meeting on Sunday looks like being the best chance of racing action in Ireland this weekend but even that hangs in the balance with parts of the track waterlogged and unraceable yesterday due to the current spell of bad weather.
Already an 8am inspection has been organised for this morning to see if Punchestown can go ahead tomorrow but track officials there appear to be no more than hopeful about racing getting the green light.
"You couldn't be confident. We've had 60mms of rain already this week, which is a lot more than we expected, and both tracks are waterlogged. There is still a chance but it's hard to be confident," said the Punchestown manager Riche Galway yesterday.
"The situation won't be helped by two severe ground frosts for the next two nights so if we are in a position to make a decision in the morning we will," he added.
In contrast the major problem for Leopardstown is expected to be a band of rain on Saturday night which is predicted to deliver up to 20mms to the Dublin track.
A similar amount fell on Wednesday night which led to an inspection yesterday by the clerk of the course, Joe Collins. On the back of that, the decision has already been taken to divide a handicap hurdle so eight races will be declared for today.
"If a scenario then develops where we can race on the hurdles course but not on the chase course, we will be able to run off a five-race programme starting at 1.20. The perfect scenario is that we will be able to race everywhere, with a 12.20 start, and the worst is that we won't be able to race at all," said the Leopardstown manager Tom Burke.
The impact of the forecast Saturday night rain will be crucial to Leopardstown's chances and Burke added: "If we got the forecast 20mms that would give us problems. But what we really need is 48 hours of dry weather first. If we get that, then we'd see what the impact of any more rain might be. Saturday night is the fly in the ointment. There's no point having an inspection until after that on Sunday morning."
