Saturday's card at Ayr Racecourse has been cancelled, meaning the track has lost its entire three-day Gold Cup meeting, it's most important flat meeting of the year. Thursday's card was abandoned after 17mm of rainfall overnight on Wednesday, and Friday and Saturday's cards were lost due to a waterlogged patch on the course that failed to improve.
“Obviously it's our biggest Flat meeting of the year and second-biggest of the year in Scotland,” said Iain Ferguson, head of PR at Ayr. “It's hard to put a figure on [the loss] but it's a considerable amount of money, probably into seven figures I would say. It's not just the racecourse itself, it's the local community. It's traditionally the second-biggest weekend of the year in the area and the last hurrah of the summer. After this weekend there's nothing really for the local businesses, like hoteliers and taxi drivers, until Christmas. People plan their holidays around this and it's a local holiday as well too, so it's a massive blow.”
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