Uttoxeter officials upbeat for Saturday card despite early check

Officials at Uttoxeter remain optimistic Saturday's meeting will go ahead despite feeling it wise to call a precautionary inspection at 7.30am.The entire course has been covered since Wednesday and there has been no frost so far.However, because of the possibility of temperatures dropping to below freezing overnight, clerk of the course Charlie Moore decided it was best to have an early look."We've absolutely been fine and the last two nights when we've had frost forecast we haven't had a problem," said Moore."There is no frost in the ground and that's even on any uncovered ground. The whole area we plan to race on is covered and has been since Wednesday night."If you read the best of the forecasts we haven't got a problem. It might just touch minus 1C. If you read the worst of the forecasts, we could get down to minus 3C, even to minus 4C."Tomorrow we are anywhere between 2C and 4C and we might get a bit of rain."What we end up with is all down to cloud cover, so we decided it was prudent to have a look first thing and tell everyone what's happening."We are very optimistic at the moment, but we are playing it with a straight bat."The going is described as heavy and the first of seven races is due off at 1.10pm.