Racing: All-weather goes under

A NEW name is needed for all- weather racing after yesterday's card at Lingfield fell to the elements with two races still to run.

The meeting was abandoned following the fifth race at the Surrey track. Three jockeys, Richard Dunwoody, Brendan Powell and Dean Gallagher, told the stewards that the track was waterlogged and unsafe.

Dunwoody said: 'They shouldn't have had to ask us. Common sense would have told you that it wasn't safe. I raced second on Qualitair Memory and couldn't see for much of the way.'

Geoff Stickels, the clerk of the course, reported that there had been a third of an inch of rain in the preceding 90 minutes. 'Conditions deteriorated so badly, there was no other alternative. The problem was with water being kicked back into faces at the fences.'