Frost a worry for Saturday

Officials at tomorrow's three scheduled turf meetings are keeping an anxious eye on the weather with frost forecast around Britain tonight.

Uttoxeter is due to race today and tomorrow and clerk of the course David McAllister said: "There are not really any problems for tomorrow - we did not have a frost last night, the temperature dipped to zero and then came back up again.

"I have been round the course today, the going is still soft, it is only just soft, nice ground. The forecast is for rain overnight starting at 2 a.m. and going on until mid-morning - if that is correct it looks like being soft heavy in places or even heavy if we have enough rain." However, he added: "There is a danger of frost on Friday night."

Ascot has an attractive programme tomorrow and clerk of the course Nick Cheyne is hopeful that the meeting will go ahead. He said yesterday: "The course is perfectly raceable today but there is a forecast of rain and then it is going to get colder.

"They say there is going to be a hard frost on Friday night, but hopefully we will be able to cope with that, one night's frost is often not enough to cause a problem. We will be protecting the crossings and the landing and take off sides of the fences.

Warwick are also due to race tomorrow and racecourse manager Christian Leech said: "We did not too have much frost last night. The course is perfectly raceable at the moment and the forecast is for very mild weather tomorrow."