Since 2000, how many times has the Welsh Grand National been postponed?

Notwithstanding the addition of a furlong or so to the race distance in 2019, the Welsh Grand National has been run at Chepstow in Monmouthshire, South East Wales in more or less the same guise since 1949. Nowadays, the race is what the British Horseracing Authority (BHA) calls a ‘Premier Handicap’, run over 3 miles, 6 furlongs and 30 yards on going that is invariably soft or heavy.

The Welsh Grand National has a long history, having been run at the now-defunct Ely Racecourse in Cardiff between 1895 and the closure of that course in 1939 and making a one-off appearance at Newport Racecourse in 1948 before that course, too, ceased to exist. At its current venue, the race was originally scheduled for Easter Tuesday, in March or April, but was moved to February a decade later and to its current position on the calendar, on the day after Boxing Day, two decades after that.

Unsurprisingly, December is one of the coldest and wettest months of the year in Chepstow, with average rainfall in the region of 2½” and daily average low temperatures around 4°C, making ground frost a distinct possibility. It would be fair to say that climatic conditions, together with the dense, clay loam soil, which drains notoriously poorly, makes life interesting for ground staff, especially during the winter months. Somewhat ironically, despite extensive work to improve drainage in the last decade or so, the Welsh Grand National has been subject to postponement five times since 2010, once because because of frost and snow and four times because of waterlogging, having not previously been abandoned since 1996. Thankfully, on all five occasions, the Chepstow course had recovered sufficiently for the race to be staged the following January, a week or two after originally scheduled.