Frost finally beats Kempton

Kempton officials were beaten by the thermometer as the second day of the Stan James Christmas Festival fell by the wayside today.

Having been optimistic that racing could go ahead when the first inspection of the track took place at 8am, clerk of the course Brian Clifford was forced to admit defeat after looking at the course again at 10am, 11am and finally noon.

Although a few hundred punters did stay at the track to enjoy the remaining racing action on TV, the loss of the fixture was a bitter disappointment, with many only learning of the abandonment as they arrived at the entrance gates.

“There are still patches of ground around the course that are frozen and it wouldn’t have been safe to race,” Clifford explained.

“Because the track was raced on yesterday, the decreased grass cover does make it vulnerable in places and the lumps just haven’t thawed out.

“At 8am the temperature was on the way up and I didn’t think it wouldn’t be a problem, but by half an hour later it was back down to minus 3C and even by midday, it was only at 2C.

“From experience, I would say that you really need a couple of hours at 3C or 4C to get all the frost out, and it just wasn’t happening.”

Nigel Seeley, public relations spokesman for Stan James, shared the disappointment at the loss of racing.

“It is very, very disappointing, but I suppose it is always going to be a peril of sponsorship around the Christmas period,” he said.

“We have signed a five-year-deal for the meeting and we’re looking forward to going to Sandown next year, as looks to be the case.

“We enjoyed a great day’s racing yesterday, but the shame is that we lost fortunes to the punters and we were looking forward to trying to win a bit back!”

Of the five British meetings scheduled to take place today, only Ayr and Wolverhampton went ahead, with the other major meeting of the day – Wetherby’s skybet.com Castleford Chase card – also abandoned.

An inspection at 7.30am proved inconclusive, but when officials looked again at 9.30 the bad news was confirmed.

Chief executive Tim Betteridge said: “If anything it got a little bit worse as the sun came up. It’s disappointing, but at least we had a very enjoyable day here yesterday.”

Particularly disappointing to the Wetherby executive was the fact that the Castleford had been switched to the second day of the meeting for the first time this year – a move designed to raise the profile of the contest.

BHB officials hope to reschedule the Grade Two contest – for which Well Chief and Armaturk were among the intended starters – in the near future, with exact details expected to be announced later this week.

Frost also claimed the jumps meeting scheduled for Huntingdon.

Following an early-morning inspection, clerk of the course Fiona Needham said: “It got down to minus four overnight. It was forecast to rise and get a bit milder but it hasn’t, so we had to abandon.”