New Year's Day cards in doubt

Cheltenham: Inspection planned

Also see

• Racecards service
• Results service
• Bet now with Sky Bet

Thursday's meetings at Cheltenham, Catterick, Fakenham and Exeter are subject to 8am inspections with temperatures threatening to dip below freezing once again.

Wednesday's cards at Uttoxeter and Warwick fell by the wayside and the weather is unlikely to make life easy for the New Year's Day fixtures.

However, Cheltenham officials remain hopeful with clerk of the course Simon Claisse saying: "We are raceable currently. The temperature dropped to minus seven overnight and it is minus four now but we would race today.

"We are forecast minus four tonight which we should deal with but we have called an inspection in case something unexpected happens.

"We wouldn't normally expect the covers to deal with temperatures as low as minus seven but when we put the covers down on Sunday, the soil temperature was still relatively high."

At Exeter, clerk of the course Barry Johnson has already called off the races on the chase track but remains confident the rest of the card will go ahead.

"We are perfectly raceable at present and have been given a forecast of minus one overnight," he said. "If that's the case we would be perfectly fine to race.

"We abandoned the chases yesterday as they had no chance and we've concentrated on the hurdles course instead and have covered up as much as possible."

It is a similar situation in North Yorkshire where Catterick clerk of the course Fiona Needham has called a precautionary inspection.

Hopeful

She said: "We are raceable at the moment but the thermometer says we dropped to minus four overnight, although it was only an air frost and the ground is not frozen.

"If we can maintain cloud cover we will be fine, but we are forecast to drop to between minus one and three tonight so we felt it prudent to take a look.

"I would certainly be more hopeful of racing now than when I looked at the forecast at the start of the week."

Fakenham clerk of the course David Hunter has called a further 7.30am inspection after a look at noon on Wednesday proved inconclusive.

"We will look again in the morning when we will be able to give a definite answer," he said.

"We wouldn't be able to race today but we have no frost forecast and we should have some cloud cover.

"Any frost at all would put the kibosh on us. It is nearly three degrees at present so the frost is slowly coming out of the ground. We couldn't call it off yet."

Saturday's fixture at Sandown is under severe threat with a 12 noon inspection set for Thursday to assess conditions.

"We've called an inspection for tomorrow as that is the earliest we are allowed to look and we'll just take stock," said clerk of the course Andrew Cooper.

"I don't want to prejudge what might happen, we'll have to see what happens in the next 24 hours.

"We are some way off racing at the moment, parts of the course are frozen solid but I wouldn't say it is a lost cause just yet.

"We'll set the ball rolling tomorrow and will probably call another check after it.

"We are forecast below freezing tonight but not dramatically, it is more to do with what we have already.

"It is only going to get just above freezing which is not enough to shift it. It is more to do with our daytime temperatures than anything else."

Meanwhile, Kempton are to stage an additional all-weather Flat fixture on Saturday due to the cold snap threatening meetings on turf.

Bookmakers William Hill are to sponsor the entire six-race card with a provisional 2.05pm start.

The entry stage is Thursday with final declarations on Friday.