Sunday cards under threat
Fontwell and Musselburgh both face inspections ahead of their scheduled jumps cards on Sunday, with officials in Scotland the more optimistic of the two.
Fontwell have called an inspection for 12.30pm on Saturday and clerk of the course Ed Arkell reports the track to be frozen at present. With further frosts and snow forecast, he admits their meeting is in the balance.
"The forecast is fairly challenging. We dropped to minus 5.5C overnight and we are forecast to reach just above freezing today. It is then going to freeze again tonight and they are talking about the possibility of snow on Saturday night," he said.
"It may just come as rain, maybe an outside chance, and that would help us along the way. We will know more tomorrow lunchtime and we don't want to upset anyone by giving false hope about our chances."
Musselburgh remain hopeful of racing despite calling a precautionary inspection for 7am on raceday morning.
The Scottish venue is currently frozen in places, but general manager Bill Farnsworth is expecting to see sufficient improvement ahead of their Cheltenham Festival Trials card.
He said: "The forecast is good. The ground is still partly frozen, but it only got down to 0C overnight, so it didn't get any worse, which is good news. We are forecast a dry and bright day today with temperatures of 3C and then some cloud is moving in and it could go to 0C overnight.
"Tomorrow we are forecast sleet turning to rain during the day, maybe four to five millimetres, quite breezy with temperatures of 6C falling to 0C overnight.
"Sunday is forecast to be bright and sunny, with temperatures of 6C or 7C, so we are very, very optimistic. We've called an inspection, but we will have a look tomorrow and if we're heading in the right direction, we may be able to give it the go-ahead then."
3 February 2012
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