Southwell off but Newbury hopeful
Lingfield’s jumps card tomorrow has also been abandoned but the three remaining meetings are all optimistic of racing taking place, as long as conditions do not worsen.
Officials at Southwell called a 4pm inspection yesterday after temperatures dropped well below freezing on Wednesday, leaving the track unraceable.
Southwell’s Dave Williams said: “We have had to abandon as the track is still frozen. With things as they are, it is pointless going to a Friday inspection.”
Newbury race today and tomorrow and have taken precautions to ensure they have the best possible chance of racing, undertaking an operation to shield all 28 acres of the track and up to 30 ground staff have been involved.
“We’ve had the whole racing line covered overnight,” said clerk of the course Richard Osgood.
“At the moment we are fine to race and I can’t envisage any problems.”
Haydock also race tomorrow and are ‘cautiously optimistic’ they can beat the weather.
“We could have raced today,” said clerk of the course Kirkland Tellwright.
“We went down to minus four last night but by early afternoon the frost had come out of the ground. If the temperature is no lower over the next two nights then we should be OK.
“Inevitably we’ll be calling a precautionary inspection for Saturday morning as we always do when freezing conditions are forecast. We have taken the usual precautions though by covering the take-offs and landings of all the fences and all we can do is wait and see.
“At this stage I would say we are cautiously optimistic.”
And Kelso are also hoping that their biggest race of the season, the Ashleybank Investments Scottish Borders National, can beat the cold snap.
“We’re supposed to get to minus two tonight and minus three tomorrow night and if that is right we should be OK to race,” Richard Landale, managing director at the track said.
“Then again I have seen one forecast say it could get as cold as minus eight. I’m pretty hopeful though. We are not starting racing until 2.15 pm. It’s not like the middle of winter when you are starting at midday so we have plenty of time.”
Lingfield have abandoned their scheduled jumps fixture tomorrow and will stage an all-weather meeting instead.
The predicted icy conditions have now rendered the jumps track unraceable but clerk of the course Neil Mackenzie Ross is pleased to be staging some Flat action.
“It was great forward thinking by everyone involved to have a contingency plan for Saturday but we had a feeling at the beginning of the week the turf meeting could be in danger,” he said.
“We went down to minus four on Tuesday which left us unraceable and we were down to minus seven last night and the ground is absolutely frozen solid.
“It is due to get to minus four again tonight and we have the prospect of heavy snow - that wouldn’t affect the all-weather track as we could grate it off. By inspecting early we have put everyone in the picture and it means people know what is going on well in advance.”
The closing two-mile Marsh Green Standard National Hunt Flat will still be staged though as Lingfield run all their bumpers on the all-weather track.
