Fontwell called off early due to frozen track

Track brought forward planned morning inspection.

Fontwell’s meeting on Thursday has been abandoned with parts of the course frozen and another cold night forecast.

Temperatures dipped to a low of minus 3.5C on Tuesday evening and were only due to rise to a high of 2C on Wednesday.

To make matters worse there was a windchill of minus 4C preventing conditions from improving.

Given it could get even colder on Wednesday evening all hope was lost that the track would thaw and having originally called an inspection for 8am on raceday, that was brought forward to 1pm on Wednesday and an early decision was made.

Wincanton on Friday is also under threat due to frost.

Having performed a minor miracle to get the course raceable on Saturday, clerk of the course Dan Cooper and his team now face a different problem.

The course is currently frozen in places and temperatures overnight could reach minus 3C before racing but a daytime high of 5C offers hope.

The meetings at Doncaster and Leicester on Wednesday both passed inspections before racing.

There were no issues at all at Doncaster but Leicester did need three inspections before getting the go-ahead, the latter at 12 noon.

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