Doncaster aim to reschedule Summit Juvenile Hurdle

Simon Milham
December 10, 2022 1:19 pm

Knight Salute won the race last year.

Doncaster will try to reschedule the bet365 Summit Juvenile Hurdle for December 29 after Saturday’s meeting was abandoned due to frozen ground.

Calling off the meeting, which also included the Grade Two bet365 December Novices’ Chase, was an easy one, according to clerk of the course Paul Barker.

Though racing was able to take place at Town Moor on Friday, temperatures dropped away to minus 5C overnight.

Having called a 9.30am inspection, it quickly became apparent racing was not viable and Barker called the meeting off just after 7.30am.

He said: “It has been a serious challenge for everybody in the last week.

Jump racing will be under threat from the cold spell over the next few days (Anna Gowthorpe/PA)

“We fleeced down on Wednesday for Friday. Temperatures had not been too bad leading up to Friday night.

“We’d hovered around minus 3C in the evenings and had some reasonably positive daytime temperatures.

“That helped massively when we got the covers off and we got up to 4C yesterday. We raced and started to put the track back immediately after racing.

“Within an hour and a half it became apparent it had started to freeze and I just felt it was pointless sealing in the ground that was cold and freezing – we’d have had no hope then, as we would have just insulated frozen ground.

“So we made the decision to leave the covers off, with the fact that the conditions were not supposed to be that cold last night, with a forecast hovering around zero.

“Lo and behold, we went to minus 5C which is the coldest day we’ve had this year!

“I got here at 6.30am this morning and it was still -3C and it was an absolute white-out. So, with that, it was apparent it was pretty frozen.

“Obviously with us racing, we went a little bit later with a precautionary (inspection notice), but it became apparent very early this morning that I needed to call this (off) a lot earlier.

“You get calls from trainers, people who have horses with first and second preferences to run at Cheltenham and here, and they all want to be on the road early.”

However, the Summit Hurdle, won by subsequent Grade One winner Knight Salute 12 months ago, could be saved for the next meeting, and Doncaster have contacted the BHA to see if the race can be moved.

Barker said: “We can’t make that call. We have spoken to the BHA and would like to run that race here again and our next opportunity would be 29th December, which is our next fixture.

“We already have a couple of decent races on that day on ITV, so it would make it a nice hat-trick of nice races for us and hopefully then, if that was the case, we would get the sponsors on board as well.

“We have approached the BHA with the view that we would like to run it on 29th.

“Obviously there was a direct clash today (with Cheltenham’s JCB Triumph Trial Juvenile Hurdle), with first and second preferences, but if it was a standalone, then hopefully we’d have quite a quality field on that day.

“There is a similar type of juvenile race at Chepstow on December 27, although Chepstow might have slightly different ground. Although, who knows with the weather this year?”