This weekend's Derby and Oaks trials at Lingfield will be run on the all-weather after course officials made the early decision to abandon all the turf races on Friday and Saturday's cards.

The Surrey circuit has been hit by some substantial rainfall over the weekend, leaving the turf course waterlogged in places.

With more rain on the way, clerk of the course Neil Mackenzie Ross felt it was sensible to make an early switch to the all-weather and he is hopeful the two major Betfred-sponsored Classic trials will remain competitive after speaking to some trainers.

He said: "We had a wet weekend. We had another 10 millimetres of rain and that falling on already saturated ground has left us waterlogged in places. We're forecast to get up to another inch of rain on Wednesday and there is no way the turf course will be raceable.

"I think making an early decision to switch to the all-weather lets everyone know where they stand and having spoken to the connections of quite a few of the horses entered in the Oaks and Derby trials, there has been great support.

"Doing things this way leaves us pretty much guaranteed to be racing on Saturday, which is fantastic news. It would have been very bleak if we'd left it and had to abandon racing on Saturday."

Mackenzie Ross confirmed that while the entries for Friday's races would stand, Saturday's entries will be reopened until noon on Wednesday.

Ascot are confident of racing taking place on Saturday after they lost their meeting last week due to waterlogging. The Berkshire course has dried out over the last few days, but rain is set to return, with a total of an inch forecast between Wednesday and Thursday.

Clerk of the course Chris Stickels said: "There is some rain forecast Wednesday/Thursday, but we should be OK. There is an inch forecast, which will certainly make it pretty soft and probably heavy in places on the round course, but we should be able to take that.

"Should we get much more than that, then we might get concerned, but at the moment we are fine and raceable. With Friday and Saturday looking a bit better, we think we'll be fine."



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