Fairyhouse forced to switch two meetings

Racing: Officials at Fairyhouse have been forced to move two February meetings to Punchestown and Navan due to ongoing remedial…

Racing:Officials at Fairyhouse have been forced to move two February meetings to Punchestown and Navan due to ongoing remedial work being carried out on the inside track.

The February 9th meeting has been moved to Punchestown with the February 23rd card switched to Navan. All other meetings scheduled for Fairyhouse are unaffected and will proceed as planned on the main track.

“We have been undertaking remedial work on the inside track since problems were highlighted at our meeting on November 3rd,” said Peter Roe, Fairyhouse manager.

“Unfortunately the adverse weather conditions through December delayed this work and it has not healed quickly enough to host the two midweek February meetings which were both scheduled for the inside track.

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“With the help of consultants and ground specialists STRI, we continue to work on the problem areas and we are happy with the progress being made.”

“We are continuing to race on the main track and look forward to running our fixtures on Saturday 29th January and Saturday 19th February, and then it will be all systems go for our Easter Festival from Sunday 24th to Tuesday 26th April, with the highlight of our year of course being the Ladbrokes Irish Grand National on Easter Monday 25th April,” added Roe.

There are new concerns over Sunday's meeting at Leopardstown after today's inspection found the course to be unfit for racing in parts due to freezing conditions.

The situation is being monitored.