Abandonments are an issue once more for horse racing around Britain as the cold weather takes a grip but the week’s feature race meeting at Sandown on Saturday is expected to survive. The south London track has been under frost covers since Wednesday and no formal inspection is planned by its clerk of the course, Andrew Cooper.
“I think we’ll be OK,” he said on Friday morning. “We had a very brief flurry of snowflakes at 4pm yesterday but that didn’t settle, so the next hurdle is tonight’s frost, which isn’t looking too severe by any means.
“We’re due to get air temperatures of -1C and the ground temperature will be a bit worse than that. It’ll slowly get up to about 4C tomorrow, so it’ll be a cold day but the covers should be able to cope. My inclination is not to call an early inspection because I don’t think it will prove necessary.”
But Cooper acknowledged that removing frost covers is not without its challenges, estimating that it would be a two-hour job for his staff. The work cannot begin until the temperature has risen above freezing, for fear that the ground could start to freeze as soon as the covers are removed, so the time-frame for doing the job before racing starts could be tight.
Saturday’s card at Wetherby is subject to a precautionary inspection at 8am on raceday. The clerk of the course, Jonjo Sanderson, checked conditions at 2pm on Friday, having earlier reported various areas of concern and a light dusting of snow after temperatures dropped lower than forecast overnight.
However, favourable conditions through the day have given hope for the card featuring the Towton Novice Chase, due to be televised on Channel 4. A tweet from the track read: “+6 temperatures today & ground significantly improved and raceable. Precautionary inspection planned for 8.00am tomorrow morning.”
Catterick’s Friday card was abandoned before the scheduled inspection at 8am, as officials found the track to be frozen and partially covered in snow. Elsewhere in Yorkshire Wetherby survived a 2pm inspection on Friday but faces another inspection at 8am on Saturday to see if racing remains viable.
In Wales Friday’s card at Chepstow went ahead after forecast snow failed to appear and Saturday’s valuable card at Ffos Las is expected to be safe.
