Musselburgh hit with double whammy by cold snap

TOMORROW'S racing at Musselburgh has been abandoned – and Saturday's additional fixture has also been called off.

A pre-dawn inspection of the East Lothian track this morning revealed that frost is still clinging on in some areas of the track and the temperatures have not risen enough. "Furthermore, the Met men now tell us that the predicted temperatures of plus 6 or more and the wind and rain they predicted for the next 24 hours or so are not likely to arrive until late Saturday and into Sunday," said racecourse boss Bill Farnsworth.

"It is incredibly frustrating as 80 per cent of the track is okay, but there are patches which are still pretty solid and we have had no option but to abandon for Friday."

After further review this morning, Farnsworth also concluded that the outlook for Saturday's meeting was so grim that there was no point in waiting any longer.

"We needed the wind and rain as well as the milder weather to arrive quickly and it just is not happening quickly enough," he admitted.

Saturday's extra fixture was arranged after the arctic weather knocked out Warwick's planned jumps meeting on Saturday and put both Wetherby and Kempton in serious doubt.