The abandonment of the Wolverhampton meeting following the loss of the jumps meetings at Lingfield and Ludlow left punters without any British racing action on Monday
The British horse racing programme was wiped out on Monday after all three scheduled fixtures, including the ‘all-weather’ meeting at Wolverhampton were called off. An extended cold snap has laid waste to the jumps calendar with every meeting up to Thursday already abandoned because of snow and frozen tracks.
An all-weather fixture at Southwell, a late addition to the programme after the loss of the two scheduled jumps cards, on Sunday provided the only domestic betting shop action.
And on Monday hopes were pinned on the Wolverhampton meeting making up for the abandonments of the jumps meetings at Lingfield and Ludlow after the tracks were hit by temperatures as low as -7C.
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Although the first race was not due until 4pm, the meeting was also cancelled after two morning inspections with the course covered by three quarters of an inch of snow and a heavy overnight frost.
The track said: “Whilst earlier work on the track was positive, and the air temperatures has risen, the ground temperature has not risen and the snow is not melting, so remains suspended within the material therefore we have taken the decision to abandon tonight.”
Wolverhampton is scheduled to stage another fixture on Tuesday while Southwell is the other all-weather offering with the jumps meeting at Musselburgh off.
Wednesday will be another blank day for British jumps action after the scheduled card at Leicester was called off due to a frozen track.
Clerk of the course Jimmy Stevenson said: “We have abandoned, we got down to -8C which would certainly be our coldest night of this winter so far.
“We’re forecast the same again for tomorrow and then slightly better for Wednesday but it won’t come in time for us as the frost is really in the ground now.”
Saturday’s meeting at Sandown was the last National Hunt fixture to go ahead in Britain, with the next planned cards at Taunton and Catterick on Thursday, although the last-named track has called an 8am inspection on Tuesday.
