RACING:HORSE RACING Ireland is intent on pursuing a "flexible approach" to staging the upcoming Leopardstown Christmas festival, with the famous St Stephen's Day fixture now rated odds-on by bookmakers to be frozen off.
Almost half a foot of snow covered the Co Dublin course yesterday, with further snow showers possible.
However, it is the Met Office’s belief that a substantial thaw will not now begin until Christmas Day rather than Friday that has Irish racing’s authorities looking to possible contingency plans.
The weather claimed its first Christmas racing casualty in Ireland yesterday when Down Royal pulled stumps on this Sunday’s fixture.
It has been rescheduled for December 30th.
The course manager Mike Todd said: “It’s clear already we are not going to get away with Sunday. We hope to be thawed out by Monday or Tuesday.”
Next Thursday (December 30th) could yet turn out to be a busy date on the racing calendar and Leopardstown may end up joining Down Royal in using what had been a blank day.
“There is always the option of using December 30th, a day that has historically been left blank should Leopardstown need a day. That is available if we need it,” HRI’s director of racing Jason Morris said yesterday.
Leopardstown’s manager Tom Burke also pointed to using next Thursday as a new finale to the four-day Christmas festival as current weather indications are favourable for racing going ahead at the track on Monday.
“We are now being told Christmas Day is when the thaw will start, with temperatures getting up to six or seven degrees. That might have been okay for St Stephen’s Day had we not got more snow but now we have to be very concerned about Sunday,” Burke admitted yesterday.
“We have four or five inches of snow here now and there is a continuing risk of snow today and tomorrow.
“It’s only bits and pieces but the forecast is changing all the time. It’s a very different world here now compared to Monday.
“But if the forecast is correct we would be hopeful of the 27th,” he added.
Limerick could now have the St Stephen’s Day spotlight all to itself as hopes are high there will be no weather impact on racing going ahead there.
“We have no snow, just maybe half an inch layer of frost in places. If we get any kind of thaw at all on Christmas Day the track should be fine. We could nearly have raced at 3pm on Monday,” the Limerick manager Russell Ferris said yesterday.
“In terms of flexibility what is happening now is no different to what we’ve been trying to do for the last month. We’re used to it now,” Jason Morris said.
“We have been changing races on the morning of declarations, dividing races, whatever we can do.”
The HRI official did, however, emphasise that even with weather conditions continuing to be so unpredictable, Leopardstown’s authorities would still endeavour if possible to wind up the Christmas action by December 30th.
“There is racing already scheduled for the 31st and January 1st in Ireland and the ambition would be to finish the festival as planned by the 30th.
“If we have to, we can move one day to another, or merge certain card and try and run any feature races that might be lost later in the week,” Morris said.
“But that all depends upon circumstances and we will have to see what the weather conditions are like later in the week,” he added.
It is eight years since Leopardstown lost a day of its lucrative Christmas festival to the weather. In 2002, the second day was moved to December 29th with the original Day Four card cancelled.
In 2000, the Day Three card was cancelled and eventually run on New Year’s Eve with the Day Four meeting abandoned.
Post-Christmas action at Leopardstown is also due to take place on January 9th with the MCR Hurdle fixture.
