Newbury and Doncaster call Friday morning inspections

Newbury will stage a precautionary inspection at 7.30am to decide whether day one of the track’s Coral Gold Cup meeting on Friday can go ahead as scheduled.

The Berkshire circuit is due to host to a quality two-day fixture, with Grade Two honours up for grabs in both the Coral Long Distance Hurdle and the John Francome Novices’ Chase on Friday’s card.

Ground staff covered the entire course earlier this week in an attempt to guard against the cold snap – but while conditions were described as raceable on Thursday morning, a forecast for another night of sub-zero temperatures has prompted clerk of the course George Hill to call an early-morning check.

It is a similar story ahead of Doncaster’s National Hunt meeting on Friday, with a precautionary inspection also set to take place at 7.30am on Town Moor.

Clerk of the course Paul Barker said: “We’d race today, but temperatures are due to drop again this evening, lower than they’ve been for the last two nights, and daytime temperatures tomorrow aren’t as warm as they are today.

“There’s a chance of wintry showers this evening, so fingers crossed we get a bit of cloud cover which will help us stay above freezing.

“We dropped just below freezing last night and tonight we’re due to get down to minus 2C and temperatures are going to struggle to get above 2C by lunchtime.

“It’s only right we look at it in the morning and see what’s happened overnight.”

A full programme of racing is set to take place on Thursday after jumps meetings at Lingfield and Taunton passed morning inspections.