Huntingdon Racecourse abandons Saturday’s meet due to severe flooding

Catherine Bell

Published: 2:36 PM November 22, 2012 Updated: 4:23 PM November 1, 2020

HUNTINGDON Racecourse has been forced to abandon Saturday’s races due to serious flooding.

Inspections at the course in Brampton earlier this afternoon showed that water levels were continuing to rise – with further rainfall expected in the next 24 hours.

General manager Sophie Able said buildings had also been affected by the floods.

“We are on a flood plain so sadly we do flood,” she said. “We flooded a couple of weeks ago, just after racing, but we haven’t seen a flood this bad for several years.

“We called an inspection at 12.30pm – we wanted to see if it had finished rising but it has continued to rise and we expecting a further 12ml in the next 30 hours.”

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She continued: “We have to be aware of all customers, the horses and trainers and give everyone enough notice of what’s happening. We’re meant to be racing on Saturday but as you can see, there is a large volume of water on the course. It has got into some of the buildings, the stables are flooded and it’s going to need a big clean up – and a big dry out!

“There is an impact for us not racing on Saturday. All the team have worked so hard to get ready for a great day’s racing but we remain positive and we’re looking forward to our next race day, which is one of our biggest – the Peterborough Chase Day on December 13.”