Race meetings fall victim to weather

Racing : This afternoon's all-weather Flat fixture at Kempton has been abandoned due to snow, as has the National Hunt meeting…

Racing: This afternoon's all-weather Flat fixture at Kempton has been abandoned due to snow, as has the National Hunt meeting at Musselburgh.

A Kempton inspection was called for 8am following a forecast for heavy snow, and six centimetres fell overnight at the Sunbury track.

Clerk of the course Brian Clifford said: "We had six centimetres overnight and sadly we have had to abandon. The machines we wanted to use this morning kept clogging up, and in the timeframe we had, with it being an afternoon meeting, it would be too big a gamble.

"It's not just the track, the general areas and infrastructure wouldn't be clear in time."

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Musselburgh has been abandoned due to a frozen track.

Temperatures fell to minus 1C overnight and clerk of the course Harriet Graham said: "We were tantalisingly close, but we've still got frozen places and have abandoned.

"Unfortunately it got to minus 1C overnight and we are not due to get warmer temperatures until midday. It is really frustrating."