Horse Racing: Fleece blanket to cover the whole of Musselburgh course

Musselburgh chief Bill Farnsworth is taking a £15,000 gamble to enable tomorrow's fixture to take place.

An army of ground staff and helpers started this morning on the mammoth task of covering the whole of the circuit with a fleece blanket in attempt to ward off the frost and snow forecast to hit the area over the next 48 hours.

The massive fleece blanket was collected late yesterday from the manufacturers in Dundee while Farnsworth spent much of the day finding 2,000 sacks and a huge quantity of sand.

"We need to fill the bags with sand to use as weights to keep the fleece in place," he explained. "All the material is on now site and we are ready to go in a huge operation to cover the whole course for the very first time.

"It is costing around 15,000 and the fleece - it's the sort of thing farmers use on crops - can only be used once, but we feel it is worth the effort." Temperatures are forecast to plunge to around -4C tonight.