Leicester Racecourse look set to be forced into another cancelled fixture on Sunday, with not enough rain forecast to break-up the hard ground.
The East-Midlands track was forced to scrap their previous meeting back on the 19th of November due to the same issue; a fixture later drafted to Hereford, and between now and the weekend it does not look promising. There is only a small bit of rain on the horizon, nothing of the wavelength to drastically alter the going.
Clerk of the Course Jimmy Stevenson has blamed the extensively hot and dry summer for the current conditions.
(Credit: Racing Post) Stevenson said: "The dry summer has been a major issue and we needed a wet autumn, but the rain we've had hasn't really touched it. Half an inch isn't going to solve our problem.
"We're a third of our rainfall – approximately seven and a half inches – down on where we should be at this time of year. It's incredible because looking at all the other tracks it seems everyone else has had plenty of rain – Sandown had heavy going and they're only 100 miles away."
The BHA announced that two provisional hurdle races have been created for the card to take the place of the two chases scheduled if the chase course is deemed unraceable following inspections, but the ground is currently as hard on the chase course as it is on the hurdles.
Leicester are also held back from watering the track, as they are not licensed to do so from November through to April. They have already called an inspection for 10am on Thursday morning to assess the track ahead of the weekend.
Stevenson said: "Unfortunately, we have had hardly any rain this month at all and we can't water as our licence to extract water from the brook here only goes up until October 31.