St Stephen’s Day racing at Leopardstown looks highly unlikely

Leopardstown Racecourse manager Tom Burke has admitted that it will be “difficult” to hold racing at the track on St Stephens’ Day.

Aside from Aintree Grand National day, St Stephens’ Day is undoubtedly the biggest day of racing on the calendar, so the heavy snowfall around Dublin yesterday and again this morning is not what anyone wanted to see least of all officials at Leopardstown.

“It’s going to be difficult to get going on the 26th on the basis of the most recent forecast," the manager at the Foxrock track told JOE.ie.

The Leopardstown area endured the snow before most areas yesterday and this morning the staff at Leopardstown were assessing the situation with their biggest fixture of the year just days away.

“We got the heavy snow yesterday which we weren’t expecting and we have four inches of snow at the moment that we have to now get rid of someway,” Burke said.

“The other situation is that the thaw that was supposed to come through on Christmas Eve is now looking like it won’t come until late Christmas Day or even into early on the 26th, so we are obviously concerned at the moment whether we get going on the 26^th or not.”

Leopardstown had been hopeful of racing without any hiccups up until yesterday until the rapid change of weather conditions and forecast.

“It was very encouraging yesterday, but it was slightly different then last night and this morning obviously so we are just monitoring it on an ongoing basis. The forecast changed this morning and maybe tomorrow morning it might be more positive again.”

Mr Burke added; “We have four inches more snow at the moment than we anticipated we would have and we’ve got to get rid of that someway.”