Newbury beats the freeze with racing going ahead

This afternoon’s Coral Gold Cup card at Newbury will go ahead as planned following a precautionary inspection.

The entire track was covered again after racing on Friday and was reported to be frost free underneath at inspection time.

Officials will, however, continue to monitor conditions with a further drop in temperatures expected before day break.

Speaking to ITV Racing shortly after 9a this morning, clerk of the course George Hill said: "The going is Good to Soft, Good in places all over.

"We were quite lucky with the weather last night, we didn't get as far down as some forecasters predicted, and we're looking forward to getting going this afternoon."

Explaining more about putting down frost covers after racing on Friday, Hill added: "We got the track covered in two hours, whch is a new record for us here anyway - that was 65 people and again it will take the same if not more to lift it very quickly.

"The covers are still down, we're still actually freezing temperatures at the moment, but the actual track is frost-free. The only thing we could do with is this freezing fog to lift a bit, but it's forecasted to by race time so fingers crossed."

It was positive news too from Fairyhouse, too, where day one of the track’s Winter Festival also passed an inspection.

A second inspection was held at Doncaster at 9am, in order to check temperatures were rising sufficiently enough to lift the fleece covering the course and with a forecast of 2C officials deemed conditions fit for racing.

Bangor also passed an inspection for its all-hurdle card.

Leicester were due to inspect at 11.30am for Sunday’s fixture but will now have a look at 8am on raceday.