Newbury hopeful of beating freeze

Newbury are hoping their innovative course cover will allow them to beat the freeze and stage tomorrow’s Vodafone Gold Cup.

Officials shrouded the entire track in a fleece blanket earlier in the week and the cover served its purpose as today’s meeting went ahead without a hitch, despite an overnight frost.

However, with temperatures forecast to drop to minus four, clerk of the course Richard Osgood will hold a precautionary inspection at 7.30am.

He explained: “We will just check the ground in the morning.

“The covers will do the job but we just felt with the ground being opened up having raced today, it was best to check.

“We are forecast a minus four and the cover is designed for that kind of temperature so hopefully we will be OK.”

Kelso and Haydock will also hold early inspections, at 8.30am and 8am respectively, as they continue to battle against the elements.

Officials at both tracks are concerned by the threat of frost as temperatures are expected to fall well below freezing again.

Kelso’s head groundsman Brian Meikle said: “It went down to minus seven last night but the sun was up by 7am and we are above freezing now.

“All the white has gone off the track and it is thawing all the time.

“We are forecast temperatures of minus three or four overnight and by 8.30 we should have a good idea of how things stand.”

Haydock’s clerk of the course Kirkland Tellwright is hopeful of going ahead.

“There will be a stage this afternoon when there is no frost in the ground and with a minus four coming tonight, there’s a good chance we will be able to race,” he said.

“It’s due to be warmer tomorrow but we will hold a precautionary inspection.”

Sunday’s meetings at both Huntingdon and Bangor are already under threat with the two tracks having called inspections for 1pm tomorrow.

Huntingdon suffered a severe frost on Thursday night and with another cold overnight forecast, clerk of the course Fiona Needham will have to take a look.

She said: “We would not have been raceable today as we had a frost of minus seven last night after frosts the two previous nights of minus five and minus three.

“The sun has been a lot stronger today though and I am a little bit more hopeful.

“It’s due to be minus six tonight and then not quite so bad on Saturday, maybe minus three.

“If there’s a chance, we will probably look again on Sunday morning but we will have to make a decision if there’s no hope.”

Bangor is currently covered by snow but clerk of the course Ed Gretton expects condition to improve.

“We still have about an inch of snow on the track but it is thawing all the time,” he said.

“Hopefully it will keep thawing until the end of the day, then we are forecast a minus four tonight.

“It is due to be a nice day tomorrow and only minus one or zero on Saturday night.”