THE continuing rise in temperatures has been accompanied by improving news of prospects for a return to normal for the racing programme in Britain, with end of week fixtures looking beyond the weather's grasp.

Although the meetings in Scotland at Ayr and Musselburgh - scheduled for yesterday and today respectively - were lost to the cold, the forecast for turf racing at Lingfield today is optimistic.

Given no further complications, Lingfield's fixture will be the first turf card to be completed in Britain since Ludlow and Hexham on December 20th. Exeter was allowed to start on Monday but had to be called off because of poor visibility with two races remaining.

Lingfield is also staging an all weather meeting tomorrow while Nottingham, whose card tomorrow attracted a massive 330 entries, was reported as raceable.