Wetherby & Fakenham Face Inspections

Wetherby & Fakenham Face Inspections

Wetherby and Fakenham officials have called for inspections early on Thursday morning to assess conditions ahead of their cards tomorrow afternoon, however it looks 'unlikely' racing will go ahead.

Low temperatures have already claimed two fixtures this week, both on Wednesday at Catterick and Hereford, and it appears two more are about to fall to the hands of the cold.

(Credit: Racing Post) Jonjo Sanderson, the Clerk of the Course at Wetherby, has called for an inspection at 8am said: "We were -4.5C last night so it's pretty cold today and frozen.

"We wouldn’t race today but it’s bright and sunny which is forecast all day, but only temperatures of about 2C which wouldn’t be enough to shift last night’s frost."

"I’d say the chances are slim if we don’t get rid of last night’s frost today and if we get more tonight. It’s going to be much warmer on Friday and the temperature could rise as early as tonight, so we’ve got ourselves a bit of a mixed bag," he said.

Meanwhile, Fakenham Clerk of the Course David Hunter - who has called for an earlier inspection at 7am, is not anymore optimistic than Wetherby's chance and said: "At the moment, we would not be raceable.

"The big concern is we have forecast -5C tonight, and tomorrow we have cloud coming in at 9am which could restrict air temperatures to 2C. If we got that we would be really struggling.

"I’ve got a 7am inspection booked in for tomorrow in case they’ve got things wrong and it’s not as cold as anticipated. I couldn’t call it based solely on what is forecast, but if we do have that I think the decision will be made for racing to be cancelled.

"However, if it's not so cold and it's a bit more like this morning things could be different," he finished.