Pontefract's first meeting of the season tomorrow is under serious threat from the weather.

Heavy rain has saturated the course and, although it was raceable yesterday, an inspection was planned for early afternoon today to determine prospects.

There are no such problems on the all-weather track at Southwell, where Settle Down is fancied to reward followers with a victory.

The two-year-old, trained by Mick Easterby, goes for the Feast of the Rivers and Seas Maiden Auction Fillies' Stakes and is expected to step-up on her first effort at Musselburgh 17 days ago.

Settle Down ran a fine race on her debut, staying on strongly in the closing stages to finish fourth to Simianna.

Sure to have benefitted from that experience, the Sheriff Hutton filly can fight out the finish tomorrow. Dale Gibson again has the mount.

Blue Eyes is taken to follow-up his recent course and distance success by winning the Bananas For Sale Handicap. The Alan Jarvis-trained sprinter, appearing in a seller for the first time, made no mistake three weeks ago when he comfortably justified favouritism.

Retained for 8,200 guineas, Blue Eyes remains open to further improvement and is napped to oblige again tomorrow.

Richard Fahey saddles The Butterwick Kid in the Happy Birthday Stan Mellor Handicap and can capture a race, held in honour of one of the best jump-jockeys since the war.

The Butterwick Kid just failed to land the first Flat race on turf this season at Doncaster last month.

He is, though, a previous winner on sand, so the switch to this all-weather surface should not count against him. Paul Hanagan, a very able apprentice, has the mount.

Jamie Spencer promises to enjoy a profitable afternoon.

The stylish Irish-born jockey teams-up with Weetman's Weigh in the Larry The Lobster Claiming Stakes and will also be aboard Distinctive Dream in the Dick Turpin Selling Stakes. Both horses should go well.

Warwick meeting off

Wednesday's Warwick race meeting was abandoned today. Parts of the course are waterlogged following heavy rain.

Warwick's Clerk of the course Hugo Bevan said: "We have had 52 millimetres (almost two inches) of rain in the past seven days and parts of the course are severley waterlogged."

"Our next meeting is due to take place on Easter Monday and we will be keeping a keen eye on the weather throughout the week.

"If we had a reasonably dry week with just the odd shower we could be all right, but a repeat of the last few days would cause us problems for next Monday," he added.

This afternoon's Windsor meeting was called off because of waterlogging.

Updated: 12:21 Monday, April 09, 2001