3 minute read
Saturday’s Coral Lanzarote Hurdle meeting at Kempton has been cancelled due to a frozen track.
A prolonged wet spell had caused the course to flood earlier in the week, but the track was deemed to be raceable on Thursday afternoon. However, plummeting temperatures forced officials at Kempton into an inspection on Friday morning and with figures reaching nearly -7C last night, an early call was made to cancel the premier fixture.
"We'd just been waiting for confirmation from all the forecasts, but we're forecast minus 2C again tonight and a high of 2C tomorrow. We're not going to get above 2C today, it's currently still sitting at minus 2.5C at 10.45am and we're still frozen solid," explained clerk of the course Barney Clifford when speaking to the PA.
"It was an easy call because we recorded a minus 6.8C which, apart from a minus 11C in 2010, is about as cold as I can remember it here. Thankfully it's due to warm up in a few days."
Elsewhere around the country, Lingfield's all-weather meeting failed a second inspection on Friday morning with the track being described as 'too lumpy', while Kelso has been called off on Sunday due to a frozen course.
Kelso clerk of the course James Armstrong posted on X: "Sadly we have no option but to abandon racing on Sunday.
"We have now had two successive nights of hard frost and more to come. The track is frozen. Positive temperatures not likely until late morning on Sunday, which is clearly not enough time for a thaw!"
Feature meetings at Warwick and Wetherby on Saturday have already been abandoned, but there does look set to be jumping action in Britain this weekend with the BHA's additional fixture at Ffos Las, which will feature the Grade 2 Towton Novices' Chase, expected to go ahead.
An additional eight-race card on the all-weather at Chelmsford should also ensure there will be racing live on ITV.