A GREAT British pastime is discussing the weather.

My team and I have been doing it quite a lot in recent weeks.

During December the forecasters had implied conditions would be fine for last week’s Coral Welsh Grand National, the biggest race meeting of the year at Chepstow and an important sporting occasion for Wales.

However, all that changed on Christmas Day and Boxing Day when we had far more rainfall than was predicted. The racecourse had 60mm of rain in 48 hours and the extensive waterlogging gave us no option but to abandon the event on race day morning, Wednesday 27th December.

This was a huge blow for everyone concerned – our customers, the sponsors, owners, trainers and jockeys. Three stable staff from Ireland had given up their Christmas break to travel over with two runners for the Coral Welsh Grand National.

The biggest impact was on my staff who had worked tirelessly in the run-up to the fixture and over the festive period to get everything prepared. The only day we closed the office was Christmas Day. We were expecting an attendance of more than 10,000 people.

We inspected the course around 5am on the 27th and everyone was in the office at 7am to get the message out that racing had been called off. We also implemented a recovery plan for the race meeting which had been agreed in advance with the sponsors Coral and the British Horseracing Authority.

The re-scheduled event now takes place this Saturday, 6th January, when the first race is off at 12.30pm. All tickets purchased for the original meeting will be valid this Saturday unless customers contact us before 4pm this Thursday to request a refund or transfer to another fixture.

For new customers, tickets are available in advance from £22 – or on the day from £27. Children aged 17 and under, go free.

There is an unsettled look to the weather forecast for the week but the track was raceable on New Year’s Day and we remain positive that we will go-ahead.

Hopefully it’ll be a Happy New Year for everyone concerned!