Jump meets subject to inspections
Officials at both at Fontwell and Warwick will judge the state of their respective courses at 7.30am. The latter was raceable yesterday but with an overnight frost forecast, clerk of the course Fiona Needham is being vigilant and has called a precautionary check.
She said: “We were perfectly raceable on Wednesday, but things could go to around minus two degrees overnight so it is best to be cautious.”
Fontwell officials are hoping the two centimetres of snow which fell on Tuesday night will thaw, but overnight temperatures are set to fall to between minus one and two. Clerk of the course Richard Aldous said: “The snow is the problem. If it thawed, we would be fine. There is no frost in the ground so we are just keeping our fingers crossed that the snow disappears and it does not get too bad overnight.”
No problems are reported at the meeting at Gowran Park featuring the Ellen Construction Thyestes Handicap Chase.
While both yesterday’s jumps fixtures at Catterick and Huntingdon survived early inspections, already lost is tomorrow’s jumps meeting at Lingfield. The track was found to be unraceable following an inspection.
Officials at Cheltenham are confident their Festival trial meeting on Saturday will go ahead.
