Plumpton forced to abandon

Very low temperatures during the night and the early morning gave officials at Plumpton no choice but to abandon today’s meeting.

Although the clerk of the course at the Sussex venue, Mark Cornford, had originally been hopeful that conditions would improve sufficiently today, parts of the track were still frozen and he took the decision to call off the fixture before the 7.30am inspection.

“For the coldest part of the night, we had minus six degrees recorded on one of our wall thermometers,” said Cornford.

“Then I walked the course and the temperatures dipped to minus seven. We do not have a lot of width to play with on the track, and the areas where grass is at a premium were frozen quite badly.

“We had covered the areas around the jumps, and they were fine – I wish I could cover the whole track like that!

“Temperatures are supposed to get up to one degree by 11 o’clock, which is not good enough, and after a meeting we decided the wisest thing to do was to pull the plug in good time. The decision was made at around ten to seven.”