GERRI Colombe will run in the rescheduled Ladbrokes Champion Chase at Down Royal next Saturday.

Trainer Gordon Elliott told The Irish Field he still intends to run all the horses he had been aiming at this weekend’s cancelled fixture when the meeting goes ahead next Friday and Saturday.

“Everything runs as planned at Down Royal” reported Elliott.

The two-day Down Royal Festival was cancelled on Wednesday following severe rainfall which led to the River Lagan bursting its banks and flooding a part of the track.

Quick action from Horse Racing Ireland and the Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board saw the fixture rescheduled for next weekend, with fresh entries required for all races, except the Grade 1 feature which reverted to the entries-at-weights stage.

Down Royal manager Emma Meehan said: “We were expecting up to 10,000 racegoers this weekend but I am confident we made the right call to cancel racing as early as we did. There is just one furlong under water, between the eight and nine furlong markers, but when the Rivers Agency told me it would take three to four days for the water levels to subside I knew we were beat.

“The industry car park is also under water and although we had a plan to take horseboxes to the infield, access and egress would have been difficult to manage. On top of that, the surrounding roads are in bad condition and there was a safety element to consider.”

“I am confident the affected areas will be fine once cleared and drained. Hopefully we will have better ground next week and it’s all to play for again. I live near Newry where many businesses and houses were badly damaged this week, so we can’t complain too much. We get to go again next week.”

Hospitality had been sold out for the meeting and the Down Royal team was busy this week checking to see if clients wanted refunds or if they planned to come next weekend. Meehan said: “We hope to know by noon on Monday if we have any spare capacity to go back on sale. We’re already selling general admission tickets for both days.”

Wexford also lost its two-day bank holiday meeting last weekend. The tack will stage a replacement National Hunt meeting on Friday, November 17th.