Kempton all set to beat the weather for Saturday action

Saturday’s high-profile meeting at Kempton looks set to go ahead as scheduled after course officials brought forward a planned inspection and gave the fixture the all-clear.

Prospects for a seven-race card featuring the Coral Silviniaco Conti Chase and the Coral Lanzarote Handicap Hurdle looked fairly bleak earlier in the week, with clerk of the course Barney Clifford saying on Tuesday “we need the forecast to improve enormously over the next four days”.

After coming through an inspection at 2pm on Thursday, a further check was called for 2pm on Friday, but Clifford is now not anticipating any further issues.

He said: “We’re raceable as we speak, thankfully, and we’re snow-free at the minute, although there is the threat of a couple of centimetres this afternoon.

“Temperatures tonight hopefully won’t go any lower than zero, possibly -1C, but I’ll get another weather update in a couple of hours.

“Ground conditions I’m describing as good, good to soft in places. It’s still spitting away with rain here at the minute, but it’s probably a mixture of the two.

“The ground was concrete earlier in the week, I have to say, and for every day you have frost you have to have a day frost-free. As we had three days of frost consecutively it takes three days to come out, but we’re fine.

“On Thursday afternoon I was thinking ‘I need another 24 hours’, but thankfully the 15 millimetres of rain overnight has helped.”

Saturday’s Classic Chase meeting at Warwick remains subject to a 2pm inspection, while Fontwell’s Sunday card needs to pass a 9am check on Saturday.

Friday’s meetings at Naas and Exeter both passed morning inspections.

The Naas card, which features the Grade One Ballymore Novice Hurdle, was transferred from its original date last Sunday due to a frozen track.

But it was not such good news at Wolverhampton, with the all-weather fixture succumbing to a frozen track.

A post on X read: “Despite efforts to turn the track around after overnight snowfall, unfortunately improvement has not been quick enough for racing this evening.”