Mild weather comes to racing's rescue

Mild weather arrived in time to save today’s three jumps meetings in the UK, with tomorrow’s and Thursday’s cards set to go ahead.

Freezing temperatures caused the abandonment of three fixtures on St Stephen's Day and the same number yesterday but this afternoon’s programmes at Chepstow, Catterick and Leicester all passed inspections.

There are no problems at Newbury tomorrow, which features the stanjames.co.uk Challow Novices’ Hurdle.

The track had been frozen “in a couple of places” earlier in the week but raceday clerk of the course Richard Osgood said: “We’re fine.

“We had 8.4 millimetres of rain overnight. We had a little bit of late frost this morning but that’s out of the ground already.

“Maximum temperatures today are expected to be about six degrees and overnight of plus one and tomorrow a maximum of nine degrees.”

Prospects at tomorrow’s meeting at Musselburgh were described by clerk of the course Anthea Morshead as “very good”.

Conditions have improved at Haydock Park and Thursday’s meeting is set to go ahead.

The track had been frozen but it has now thawed out.

Clerk of the course Kirkland Tellwright said: “The frost is out of the ground. We could have raced today and the going is heavy.”

Officials at Thursday’s other jumps meeting at Taunton are also confident of racing taking place.

Club secretary Bob Young said: “The sun is shining and everything is fine.”