What chance Kempton being raceable on Boxing Day?

stodge said:
Kempton will be fine as will most of the southern meetings on Boxing Day. The meetings in the north are much more at risk but the cold weather is easing and there won't be a White Christmas I'm afraid.
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Unfortunate statement made about cold weather easing just hours before Armageddon hit the south in the form of persistent heavy snow and travel chaos!! :D

It snowed all afternoon at Kempton but it wasn't settling the way it did 20 miles down the road in Bracknell, Ascot and further afield to Reading, Newbury and to a lesser extent Wantage. However the snowfall was severe enough for them to deem by about race 4 or 5 that the walkway to the course was too dangerous to ride down so the nibblers would mount oncourse, then decided for the last that the paddock was also too dangerous to use so all runners would go straight to the track and mount there. They're really not very good at deploying salt effectively at Kempton, a good 80% of the place was an ice rink of death trap proportions with the few areas salted having large lumps of salt dumped in a pile rather than being spread about. Oh dear.
 
I would imagine that every single horse box driver, jockey and any other poor soul that had to try and get home from there last night now hate the place with a vengeance. It's all very well putting meaningless racing on in order for the betting shops to extract the last bit of kids Christmas present money from wastrel parents who can't shove it in the fruit machines quick enough, but the courses should consider how people and horses get to and from the place. You would have thought that when conditions got so bad that horses couldn't even be mounted in the parade ring the powers that be would have taken the hint that things were getting bad. I had the worst (and possibly most dangerous) journey of my life home last night, leaving Kempton at 5.10pm and getting home at 1.56am. I would imagine there are worse tales than that from people going to more rural areas. I dread to think the chaos if the frost covers saved racing on Boxing Day but the conditions on and around the course were like yesterday with 20,000 there instead of an estimated 20 payers.
 
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...travelling considerations for trainers and racegoers alike are indeed not to be taken lightly... such racing (or perhaps any racing) is not worth coming to grief over.
 
Perhaps we're talking too soon... Temperatures are set to drop to -6 tonight (-3 mentioned previously). Not sure the frost covers can cope with this.
 
SteveM said:
Perhaps we're talking too soon... Temperatures are set to drop to -6 tonight (-3 mentioned previously). Not sure the frost covers can cope with this.
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Looked at the market last night and plenty were asking to be accomodated at 1.1 for racing to go ahead. Hope it wasn't John Kettley having a punt!
 
It's a good job the King George isn't run at Musselburgh.......deepest snow I've seen in Edinburgh for 25 years.
 
And coldest deepest frost ive seen here in god knows how long. Theres a polar bear in my garden. Bit of luck it will eat my twat neighbours. Perfect xmas

I would be astonished if kempton was raceable today, but forecast does look better
 
Boxing Day...

Towcester has been abandoned and I think the meetings at Sedgefield, Market Rasen and Wetherby must all be considered "doubtful".

A harsh frost in the south last night but there are clear signs of a return to less severe conditions by the end of the week. The question is whether the frost will come out quickly enough at places like Wincanton and Huntingdon but I think it will.

There's a risk of bad weather developing around New Year - wouldn't it be ironic if Kempton raced and Cheltenham was abandoned ?
 
stodge said:
Towcester has been abandoned and I think the meetings at Sedgefield, Market Rasen and Wetherby must all be considered "doubtful".

A harsh frost in the south last night but there are clear signs of a return to less severe conditions by the end of the week. The question is whether the frost will come out quickly enough at places like Wincanton and Huntingdon but I think it will.

There's a risk of bad weather developing around New Year - wouldn't it be ironic if Kempton raced and Cheltenham was abandoned ?
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My gut feeling is that it will go ahead. Christmas day is set to be milder and hopefully will take the frost out by the following day. Having said this it was very cold last night (colder than forecast).
 
G-G said:
If Kempton does go ahead, I would wonder if everyone who wants to be there will be able to get there?
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Fields could well be depleted for this reason. Hopefully it won't affect the high profile entries.

I'm wimping out (unaccustomly) in actually going myself, but I've paid for the family to go to a pantomime so I can watch it in peace on the box... money well spent!
 
Clerk of the course Barney Clifford is confident Kempton's William Hill King George VI Chase meeting will beat the cold snap.
The recent big freeze has cast doubt over several National Hunt fixtures on Boxing Day, with Towcester having already been abandoned.
But with Kempton having deployed frost covers over the entirety of the track, officials at the Sunbury circuit remain in high spirits.
Clifford said on Wednesday: "If we were racing today we'd fall into the same trap as Haydock on Saturday that if we lifted the covers they would freeze behind us, so it's a good job they are in place.
"Looking ahead, the temperatures are due to rise from tonight and over the next three or four days.
"We've got some precipitation coming through tonight - showers of rain and sleet - but temperatures are set to rise to four degrees tomorrow and five degrees Christmas Day and hopefully increasing through Boxing Day and December 27.
"It's perfectly raceable under the covers, they keep the ground temperature high.
"Prior to employing the covers, we were good to soft and we've had 10 millimetres of precipitation but you still couldn't call it anything other than good.
"It might ride a bit dead."

Source: PA
 
Well im 3 miles up the road and after really heavy frost last night would definately say its a bit milder today than yesterday. Clouding up too. Roads round here are fine
 
Was planning on going to Towcester so that's one plan out of the window. Might make the trip to Kempton now instead.
 
Anyone know if there will be races transfered to the Kempton card Boxing day, more the merrier.
 
I am trying to find the relevant thread but this is as close to what I can find, did anyone on Boxing Day buy a ticket into the Car Park A situated behind the London Irish stadium, the ticket said that it would be a 5minute walk but I can assure you that someone must have missed the 1 that should have been printed before the 5, at least 15mins..
 
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