Horse Racing: Market Rasen calls off Sunday’s card
Market Rasen has had to abandon its Sunday fixture due to frozen conditions on the track.
An inspection had been planned to take place on Wednesday at noon, but ended up never happening because conditions seemed hopeless and the abandonment decision was made as early as around 11 am. Up to 11,000 people were expected
at the fixture.
“It was a lost cause,” said Kirkland Tellwright, acting clerk of the racecourse. “The course is frozen and snowbound as it has been since the end of November.”
The Market Rasen racecourse is the most recent one to call off its Boxing Day fixture, following Towcester (which announced its abandonment on Tuesday) and Down Royal (which has postponed its meeting to Thursday, December 30).
Meanwhile, Kelso is also not very optimistic about its December 29 fixture. An inspection is scheduled to take place at noon on Friday on the track, which is covered with a thick layer of snow and currently looks unraceable. Harriet
Graham, acting clerk of Kelso, is not very hopeful that the meeting will go ahead under current weather conditions.
"We're covered in snow and it's snowing again,” said Graham. “We had a deep frost last week and it's done us less favours because the ground is now rock hard and we've got about eight inches of snow on top of it. It's going to
be very cold up until Boxing Day. There's a possibility of milder weather coming in but if that did come in and we had a really quick thaw we'd be waterlogged."
Nevertheless, the final and official decision about the race at Kelso will be announced after the inspection on Friday.
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