The tracks at Taunton and Huntingdon must pass inspections if jumps racing is to resume on Thursday for the first time since last weekend, but there was disappointment for National Hunt fans when the scheduled fixture at Doncaster was abandoned at lunchtime on Wednesday.
The Yorkshire course would have played host to the Arkle Chase hope Josses Hill among others from the Nicky Henderson team but the freezing temperatures left the clerk of the course, Roderick Duncan, with no alternative but to call the meeting off.
Duncan reported: “We’ve had to abandon, unfortunately. I’ve just walked the course with a local trainer and we’re not fit to race now. The forecast has deteriorated and forecasters are telling me temperatures will be at least a degree colder tonight than they were last night. It’s devastating as it was a very strong card after the declaration stage.”
Officials at Taunton have called a precautionary inspection for 7am. The track has frost covers down but the clerk of the course, Jason Loosemore, will look early in case the temperature drops lower than forecast.
Huntingdon plans to inspect an hour later at 8am ahead of racing that afternoon. The clerk of the course, Sulekha Varma, checked conditions on Wednesday morning and while there are still some areas of snow on the track, she is hopeful a slight rise in temperatures should help the situation.
She said: “The bulk of the snow has melted but there are just a few pockets on the slightly colder areas of the track. We had a slight frost last night, nothing too drastic, and with temperatures forecast to be 4C or 5C today, we’d be hopeful the last of the snow will melt. We need the forecast to be right and not have too sharp a frost tonight. We are not quite there yet but we have improved a huge amount.”
Friday’s meeting at Newcastle is also under threat with an inspection called for 8am on Thursday and the clerk of the course, James Armstrong, is not overly optimistic about the track’s chances of racing at present. He said: “We dropped below freezing again last night and although it wasn’t as cold as it has been, it dropped to minus 1C for a decent period of time and we had some showers overnight which we really didn’t want.
“We have a light dusting of snow but it is forecast to be 4C or 5C today. However, there is the possibility of further wintry showers through today and perhaps tomorrow with another frost forecast tonight, with temperatures of zero or just below depending on which forecast you look at.
“We raced last Wednesday and then it snowed and froze the next day so we struggled to get it back again. We’re up against it but we will see where we are in the morning.”
The other National Hunt meetings are at Bangor and Kempton, where an inspection will be held at 8am on Thursday and where there are plans to hold an all-weather fixture if the jumps track is not fit to race on.
The feature meetings at Newbury and Warwick on Saturday are considered likely to go ahead. Newbury have had the frost covers down for a week ,while Warwick are hopeful their big meeting will beat the current freeze.
The fixture is set to stage the informative titanbet.co.uk Kingmaker Novice Chase that usually throws up a few clues for the Arkle at Cheltenham and as yet, no inspection is plannes.
Clerk of the course Sulekha Varma said: “If the forecast is correct we should be fine. We covered the whole course on Sunday and underneath the covers we aren’t frozen. At this stage we’re pretty optimistic, the snow has all gone. It depends on how cold it gets and how well the covers do their job.”
