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There will be no jumps racing in Britain or Ireland on Saturday after all four meetings were forced to abandon due to frozen temperatures.
The abandonment of all four National Hunt meetings across both sides of the Irish Sea has also meant there will be no free-to-air racing broadcast by ITV, with both Sandown and Wincanton scheduled to feature.
A forecast frost had caused Sandown's clerk of the course Andrew Cooper to announce a precautionary 7.30am inspection, but with temperatures dropping to -2C last night and not expected to get to above freezing before 11am, he was left with no option but to make an early decision to abandon.
Wincanton, which was also scheduled to feature on ITV Racing, were forced to bring their inspection forward due to temperatures reaching -4.2C overnight. Clerk of the course Tom Ryall described the situation to the Racing Post as 'pretty black and white by the time we'd got halfway down the backstraight' and was quickly forced to abandon the meeting with the course being frozen in places and unraceable.
Newcastle's jumps card was forced to be abandoned on Friday afternoon, while the cold snap in Ireland also meant Cork's seven-race programme was cancelled on Saturday morning.
A spokesperson for the British Horseracing Authority labelled the circumstances as "regrettable" that the sport had been left without afternoon fare.
He said: "The BHA has monitored the situation throughout the week, including communicating with colleagues at Sandown, Newcastle and Wincanton, and ultimately took the decision not to reschedule another meeting into the afternoon time slot. Unfortunately, the weather has gone against us on this occasion.
"The BHA understands the significance of ensuring that there is live racing on free-to-air television on Saturday afternoons and works hard to ensure this is the case and will continue to do so in future. However, when circumstances remain challenging, and race times cannot be brought forward by Rule following the declaration stage, there is always some limitation on what can be done to remedy the situation."
Both all-weather fixtures at Wolverhampton and Southwell are scheduled to go ahead.
