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Leopardstown has been left partly waterlogged by 60mm of rain four days before the Dublin Racing Festival. On Saturday and Sunday the track is scheduled to host two of the biggest days in the jumps calendar, which regularly draws crowds of 35,000 and is also a key warm-up event for the Cheltenham Festival.

Willie Mullins stars Galopin Des Champs and Lossiemouth are among the champions set to line up. However it found itself in the teeth of Storm Chandra which brought with it 60mm of rain which left the track unraceable on Tuesday. The IHRB said: “Following 58mm of rain in the last 24hrs (165mm in last 12 days), parts of the track at Leopardstown (Saturday & Sunday) are now waterlogged.

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“Heaviest rain has now passed according to forecast. Breezy with possibility of light showers today & tomorrow. Mainly dry early Thursday with rain developing Thursday night & then turning mainly dry thereafter into the weekend.”

Video of the course posted on X showed the extent of the waterlogging with large areas of the chase course under water.

Yet the track’s new CEO Mark Clayton voiced confidence the two day meeting will go ahead with the track expected to dry out.

“The storm is pretty much blowing through now and we’re confident given the forecast we will be racing both days, which is amazing given the volume of rain and I’m not sure is many tracks in Britain or Ireland that would be able to take that,” he said.

“I joked with the team when I first met them that I had been to the track numerous times over the last year and not seen any rain, well the last 12 days we’ve seen 160mm of rain and on Monday we had 60mm of rain, it’s been torrential.

“Of course we have to remain cautious, but we have no contingencies planned as given the forecast at the moment, it gives us complete optimism we will be racing both Saturday and Sunday.”

He added: “The reason we’re in this position is because of the unforecast rain we had yesterday. We were forecast to have 45mm over Monday and Tuesday, and yesterday alone we got 60mm. That is why when we walked it yesterday we were in a good state, but today is unraceable.”