Catterick card frozen off as cold snap continues

There will be no National Hunt racing in Britain until Wednesday at the earliest after Catterick’s Tuesday fixture became the latest victim of the cold snap.

Quality Irish action at Cork kept the show on the road for jumps fans on Sunday, but with Market Rasen and Plumpton’s cards already abandoned, Monday’s racing programme was confined to the all-weather.

Even those fixtures at Lingfield and Wolverhampton were in some doubt, but Lingfield passed a precautionary inspection at 7.30am, while Wolverhampton is subject to a 10am check.

The course at Catterick was reported to be “90 per cent” raceable on Sunday, but another night of freezing temperatures led to clerk of the course Fiona Needham left with no option but to draw stumps.

She said: “It actually hasn’t been as cold overnight as I thought it was going to be – for a lot of the night it was only about minus 1C.

“But temperatures plummeted early on this morning, it’s currently minus 3C and it’s going down, which to be fair the forecast said would happen and it’s not due to get above freezing all day today.

“A lot of the course was raceable on Sunday – where there’s good grass cover it’s absolutely fine.

“But there are some bits down the home straight that we can’t avoid and it’s getting worse as it’s get colder, which is very annoying, but given the forecast I don’t think anybody is surprised.”

The next scheduled British jumps meeting is on Wednesday at Newbury, but whether that survives an inspection at noon on Monday remains to be seen.

Looking even further ahead the team at Exeter have announced an inspection for noon on Tuesday ahead of their planned Thursday fixture.