Leicester, Kempton to go ahead

Leicester's National Hunt Card has beaten the weather and goes ahead as planned after an early-morning inspection.

Leicester's National Hunt Card has beaten the weather and goes ahead as planned after an early-morning inspection.

Clerk of the course Nick Lees described the course as "frozen in places" yesterday and officials inspected the course at 7.30am.

But racing was given the green light and the action gets underway at 12.25.

"We're going ahead," said Lees. "The temperature is 4C and the frost is out of the ground, there's one place where's there's just a fraction but that's nearly out now. There's no problems and we're racing."

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The going is good to soft, soft in places on the hurdles track, and good to firm, good in places on the chase course.

Officials at Wetherby will inspect the course again at 9.30am before giving the all-clear to this afternoon's fixture.

However, racecourse manager James Sanderson is "optimistic" that racing will be given the green light.

Yesterday's fixture at the course was lost due to frost but Sanderson said this morning: "We've just had the first inspection, it didn't pass because there are still places where it is a bit slippy - the frost is still quite hard in the ground.

"But it's coming out and we'll look again at 9.30 and we're optimistic. It's 5 degrees above and everything is in its favour."

The seven-race card is due to get underway at 12.30 and includes the rescheduled Castleford Chase, which was lost from yesterday’s meeting.

Racing goes ahead at Kempton Park this afternoon after officials cancelled an early-morning inspection.

The track had to survive an inspection yesterday and a forecast of -3C overnight prompted a similar plan this morning.

However, clerk of the course Brian Clifford called off the inspection at 6.30am.

He said: "We're raceable and it's actually started raining now. We're still good for the time being but we'll just see how much rain we get really."

The six-race card gets underway at 12.40 with the Sword Security Wayward Lad Novices' Chase.