Officials brought forward an inspection planned for 3.30pm after a brook near the track burst its banks and water flooded on to the course earlier today.

"The flood waters rose very quickly and it's certainly not going to have gone down by tomorrow, " said clerk of the course Fiona Needham.

"They are still rising, admittedly slower than they were, but we are a bit like a boating lake, unfortunately.

"We had 20 millimetres of rain overnight which the track itself had taken very well but the water courses around us hadn't and the brook burst its bank and flooded on to the track."