Leopardstown Racecourse© Photo Healy Racing
Leopardstown Clerk of the Course Lorcan Wyer reports the south County Dublin track in good shape ahead of the Christmas Festival meeting which runs from December 26 to 29. The Foxrock venue plays host to seven Grade 1 races over the four days with total prizemoney in excess of €1.5m.
“We’ve had 4mm of rain since Thursday morning. The going on all hurdle tracks is yielding, and on the chase track it’s generally yielding with a little bit of good to yielding down the back straight,” Wyer said yesterday afternoon.
“We did a little bit of selective watering on a couple of spots down the back straight just to marry things up a little bit.
“It looks like we will get about 10mm of rain on Friday although some of the weather forecast models vary a bit and then generally dry Saturday, Sunday and Monday before turning a little bit more unsettled from Tuesday onwards.
“The hurdle track on day one and two are on a wide line, while days three and four are on inside lines. That obviously frees things up for DRF (Dublin Racing Festival) in the mid-section.”
The ground is a lot more testing at Limerick ahead of their four days of festive action also from December 26-29.
The going is now soft, soft to heavy in places, following 13mm of rain in the last 48 hours. The forecast remains unsettled with the possibility of 10-15mm of rain between now and racing on Monday according to Met Eireann.
Following a dry day yesterday the going at Down Royal remains good to yielding ahead of their fixture on St Stephen’s Day.
Rain is forecast today, heavy at times with up to 15mm, with further showers expected on Saturday and Sunday before a mainly dry day on Monday.
