Salisbury card alleges waterlogging
Group Three contest was due to be the headline event on Thursday afternoon.
Salisbury had to postpone its afternoon card on Thursday because to the course becoming flooded from the continuous, heavy rain that fell during the morning.
The Group Three Incentive: Purchasing Irish Is Profitable The highlight of the match was expected to be the Dick Poole Fillies' Stakes, where William Haggas' Newbury scorer Jewellery was another intriguing candidate in the field, and Ralph Beckett's stunning Newmarket winner Tabiti was the favourite to make a successful transition into stakes competition.
But after eighteen millimetres of rain fell before a midday inspection, standing water had accumulated in the Wiltshire track's low spots, rendering the surface unsuitable for racing.
"We are up to nearly 20mm now with a further 10-15mm due throughout the afternoon, so basically a huge volume of rain," stated Jeremy Martin, the course clerk.
"The majority of the track has handled it well, but there are some undulations and low spots, especially in the dip that leads to the Fibresand bridge, where water was starting to puddle. It fell on good to hard terrain.
"Because of the amount of rain we've had, we raced here on Friday up the middle, where there was some wear and it was beginning to have unstable footing. Really, we had no chance to race this afternoon.
"There's only so much rain a racecourse can withstand, and this was supposed to be our 13th meeting of the season and our yearly highlight. The earth becomes incapable of withstanding the tremendous rain once it begins to ponder."
Martin continued, "It was lovely, good to hard ground, and looked wonderful when I walked it yesterday at 5 p.m. Since we hadn't touched it in three or four days and anticipated there would be some rain, it was even on the fast side of good to firm.
"Earlier in the week, it was predicted that this rain storm would pass over northern France, but it merely followed north and completely destroyed us. As the morning wore on, it only became worse and worse."