Christmas festivities could be cancelled at Ascot this weekend as the freezing weather threatens to cause a winter wipeout of jump racing in Britain.
Every scheduled National Hunt fixture up to Thursday has already been abandoned and prospects for the feature programme at Ascot on Friday and Saturday, when the ‘Christmas Weekend’ highlights are the Grade 1 Howden Long Walk Hurdle, £150,000 Betfair Exchange Trophy and £100,000 Silver Cup, are not encouraging.
Although frost covers have been deployed since last Wednesday on shaded areas of the home straight, as well as the take-offs and landings, the track is frozen in places and there is snow on the surface after successive nights when temperatures fell below freezing.
“We have a bit of a challenging week,” said clerk of the course Chris Stickels. “We need a thaw. We are frozen in places. We have a light covering of snow on the ground and temperatures on Wednesday and Thursday night are looking very cold.
“In the daytime we are not expecting anything higher than 3C so whether that is warm enough to give us a thaw we will have to wait and see.
“Even Friday into Saturday morning now looks quite cold, when I didn't think it was going to be and I don’t think temperatures then will get much above 3C.”
There has been no jump racing in Britain since Friday when both Cheltenham and Doncaster overcame challenging conditions to stage racing, but had to cancel their cards the following day.
In Ireland, Cork went ahead on Sunday but the other meeting at Punchestown was called off.
So far Monday’s fixtures at Market Rasen and Plumpton, plus Catterick and Wincanton on Tuesday and Wednesday's Newbury programme have been abandoned due to frozen turf.
The all-weather programme will continue to go ahead with the meeting at Lingfield on Monday passing an inspection. Officials will also take a look ahead of the evening Wolverhampton fixture, but they are optimistic it will take place.
Thursday's racing at Exeter, where temperatures dropped to -8C on Friday, is subject to a 12pm inspection on Tuesday, while the outlook at Ffos Las is better. The track is under covers and there is no frost in the ground, according to the latest bulletin.
