Ludlow Racecourse Season Cancelled: How Drought Kills a Turf Track

Ludlow Racecourse season cancelled: what happened

Ludlow Racecourse season cancelled is now official: on Thursday 12 November 2026 the Shropshire jumps track called off every remaining fixture of its 2026-27 season after an inspection by the British Horseracing Authority (BHA). The grass never recovered from a hot, dry summer, and the course plans to race again in October 2027.

The club said the ground was not fit after an exceptionally hot and dry summer. Chief executive and clerk of the course Simon Sherwood called it a tremendously difficult decision.

Ludlow had already lost its first three meetings of the autumn. BBC Sport puts the total at 14 meetings lost, counting those earlier ones and the Monday 23 November card.

Why is Ludlow racing cancelled? Gravel, drought and dead grass

Ludlow sits on a free-draining gravel base. In a wet winter that is a gift, because water runs away and the course rarely loses a meeting to waterlogging.

In a drought the same gravel works against it. The ground holds very little moisture, so the grass has nothing to draw on when the rain stops.

Here is how the damage built up, according to the course, the BHA, BBC Sport and Racing Post:

• Summer: the turf turned yellow and went dormant. BBC Sport described it as the area's driest summer since 1976, and Sherwood told the BBC the course had no rain at all in July.
• Limited water: the BHA says Environment Agency limits on taking water restricted how much the course could irrigate.
• September: the grass only began to recover, and it became clear that some had died. Racing Post and BBC Sport put the damaged area at about a quarter of the course, with bends and fences among the worst-hit spots.
• Autumn: the track re-seeded the bare areas and applied liquid fertiliser, but the BHA says there was too little rain in September and October. Sherwood told Racing Post that falling temperatures and shorter days made regrowth harder.
• 12 November: BHA inspectors and the racecourse agreed the turf could not reach a raceable standard in time.

On the weather itself, the Met Office says summer 2026 was provisionally the UK's warmest on record, and England had its driest July on record. It was not the UK's driest summer overall, because late August rain lifted the totals.

Ludlow is not alone

This is the extreme case of a wider problem for British jump racing this autumn. Racing Post reports that Exeter, Kempton and Wincanton have each lost several fixtures because the ground was too firm.

In late September the BHA also announced that October cards at Chepstow and Hereford would be all-hurdle meetings, after Chepstow's steeplechase course was judged not ready to race on. Our guide to why horse races are abandoned covers the more familiar causes, such as waterlogging and frost.

Why a turf track needs living grass

A racecourse is a living surface, and the grass does the safety work.

A Thoroughbred gallops at more than 30 mph, and in jump racing it also lands over fences with its full weight on its front legs. Three things in the turf make that survivable, race after race:

• Cushion. Leaf, thatch and moist soil absorb part of the impact. Dry, bare ground is hard and passes more of the shock up the horse's legs.
• Grip. A dense mat of roots binds the top layer of soil so the hoof can push off without the surface shearing away. Sherwood said the grass must be properly knitted so there is no risk of slipping.
• Consistency. Horses cope best when every stride feels the same. A track with dead or damaged grass on about a quarter of its surface changes underfoot without warning.

The worst places to lose grass are the bends and the take-off and landing sides of fences, where horses turn, push and land hardest. Those were among the worst-affected areas at Ludlow.

Dead patches do not always close a course. BHA rules let a track "doll out", which means railing off a bad patch of ground and steering the runners around it. That only works when enough sound ground is left to race on, and at Ludlow the racecourse and the BHA's inspectors agreed the turf could not reach a raceable standard.

British racing describes the surface with the "going", a scale that runs from heavy through firm to hard. When the ground is too dry to race on, the official description is "Hard (unraceable)". The BHA's guidance is that jump courses should aim to provide Good ground, which is why tracks water in dry spells when they can. Our explainer on horse racing track ratings shows how those descriptions work.

How a racecourse is re-sown, and why Ludlow needs a full year

Routine repairs are quick by comparison. BHA guidance expects jump courses to set aside about seven to eight weeks in the growing season each year for maintenance, including re-seeding worn areas. Grass that has died over a large area, late in the year, is a bigger job, and how long it takes depends on the site.

You cannot fix a dead track by scattering seed and waiting a few weeks. A typical turf renovation goes roughly like this:

1. Assess the surface and the soil beneath with an agronomist. Ludlow has had agronomy advice since August.
2. Clear and open the surface by mowing, raking out dead material and spiking or aerating hard ground.
3. Overseed the thin and bare areas, usually with hard-wearing ryegrass mixes.
4. Feed and top dress where needed. Ludlow has used seed and liquid fertiliser.
5. Keep the seedbed moist with irrigation or rain until the seedlings root.
6. Protect the new grass from heavy wear until it is dense and deeply rooted.

Step 6 is why Ludlow needs a full year. Turf specialists warn that young ryegrass can look green well before it can take wear.

Seed sown in late autumn grows slowly as the soil cools and the days shorten, and the real growth comes in spring. A field of jumpers galloping over half-rooted seedlings in January would tear them out and leave the track worse than before.

The calendar matters too. Ludlow is a jumps course that races from autumn to spring, so the winter it has to skip is its entire season. A return in October 2027 gives the new grass one full spring and summer to thicken and root.

The club says it will use the break to restore the track, upgrade facilities including the weighing room, and make the course more resilient to dry spells. The BHA says a planning application is in for a larger reservoir to store more water.

What BHA inspectors and a clerk of the course do

Whether a track is fit to race is not one person's call. Two roles do most of the work, and the raceday stewards and the BHA's head office also have a say.

The clerk of the course is the senior official at each racecourse who prepares and presents the racing surface. The job covers:

• managing the turf, watering and the ground staff all year
• walking the course and declaring the official going
• checking fences, hurdles, rails and bends
• calling an inspection whenever any part of the course may not be safe, which can end in the meeting being abandoned

That last power has limits. Under the BHA's General Instructions, a meeting can only be abandoned earlier than noon three days beforehand by the BHA itself: the racecourse must contact the Inspector of Courses first, and the clerk then seeks the BHA's approval. The clerk can also ask a steward to attend an inspection, and on each raceday walks the course with the chair of that day's stewards' panel.

Clerks must complete mandatory training and accreditation. Sherwood is a former jump jockey who won the 1989 Cheltenham Gold Cup on Desert Orchid, and he has been Ludlow's clerk since 2019.

The BHA Course Inspectorate is the regulator's own team. Its inspectors visit racecourses to check that the track and fences meet the standards in the BHA's General Instructions, and they advise clerks when the ground is in doubt.

At Ludlow, the decision on 12 November was taken jointly by the racecourse and the Inspectorate. For a different kind of stop, where a race is halted after it has started, see what a void race is.

What happens to the lost fixtures

The meetings do not vanish. The BHA confirmed on 12 November that 12 Ludlow fixtures move to other courses, which keeps the races and prize money available to trainers, owners and jockeys.

The BHA describes the list as Ludlow's remaining 2026-27 fixtures plus its early 2027-28 ones. Earlier in the autumn, when Ludlow's 7 October card was abandoned, the BHA added a fixture at Worcester on the same day.

Tom Byrne, the BHA's head of racing and betting, thanked the Horserace Betting Levy Board for its continued funding contribution.

What to watch next

• Rain and the going elsewhere. Exeter, Wincanton and Kempton still need soft enough ground to race. Check each course's going report before you travel.
• The transferred fixtures. The first is at Huntingdon on Monday 23 November 2026.
• Ludlow's regrowth in spring 2027. That is when the re-sown grass should show whether it has taken.
• The reservoir application. More stored water is the long-term fix for a gravel track.
• The return date. Ludlow says October 2027. The BHA's 2027 fixture list, published on 3 September 2026 before the closure was announced, has Ludlow's first autumn meeting on Thursday 21 October 2027. Treat that date as provisional until the course confirms it.

If you had a ticket or membership for a Ludlow meeting, contact the racecourse directly about its refund terms. For the jumps action that is going ahead, our Paddy Power Gold Cup guide covers Cheltenham's November Meeting, which starts on Friday 13 November.

New to the vocabulary? The glossary explains terms such as going, hurdle and steeplechase.