Weather watch: Kempton abandoned on Saturday

Saturday's high-profile jumps card at Kempton Park is the latest to fall to the sustained cold snap as the £290,000 fixture - set to feature the £100,000 Coral Lanzarote Hurdle - was called off before a planned 11.30am inspection.

The early inspection did not harbour great hopes for the meeting going ahead and course officials abandoned the meeting at 10.45am because of a frozen track. Temperatures plummeted to -6.5C overnight with similar figures at the track this morning, while the forecast for Friday evening is for the gauge to hit -4C. 

Meanwhile, today’s all-weather meeting at Lingfield Park has been abandoned following a second inspection and the Sunday fixture at Kelso has already been called off due to a frozen track.

Lingfield’s Polytrack surface was described as too lumpy and it was deemed there was insufficient time and temperatures to see enough improvement.

Tomorrow’s meetings at Warwick and Wetherby had already been called off.

After an early-morning inspection today, Kelso clerk of the course James Armstrong posted on X: “Sadly we have no option but to abandon racing on Sunday.

“We have now had two successive nights of hard frost and more to come. The track is frozen. Positive temperatures not likely until late morning on Sunday, which is clearly not enough time for a thaw!”