With sub-zero temperatures forecast on Christmas night, Racecourse Holdings Trust will be using frost protection covers to ensure their December 26 meetings at Sandown Park, Huntingdon and Market Rasen go ahead as planned.
Andrew Cooper, clerk of the course at Sandown Park, host to this year's Stan James King George VI Chase meeting, said: “We will be using covers which spread over an area the equivalent of at least two football pitches and we are targeting the parts of the track that are lacking in sunlight at this time of year.
"Using our existing resources we can take measures to protect the take offs and landings, although covering the whole of both the hurdle and the chase track is not, as yet, a feasible option. The covers are being laid down today and will remain in place until the day of racing.
"But with a forecast of temperatures in the territory on minus three and minus four for Christmas night we will hold a precautionary inspection at 7.30 on Monday morning. The covers will no doubt help matters."
Last year's Saint Stephen's Day fixture at Market Rasen was abandoned following a severe overnight frost and in order to avoid a repeat, officials are laying down 3,900 square metres of specially created material to protect the track.
Pip Kirkby, managing director at the Lincolnshire venue, explained: "Having lost the race meeting last year we were determined to explore every option to give ourselves the best possible chance of staging racing on Boxing Day.
"We were aware that farmers also have to deal with the cold weather, so we looked into some of the methods they use to protect their crops. We actually borrowed the idea for our covers from carrot farmers who blanket the carrots in the ground to stop the frost getting to them.
"The equipment has been designed and built locally. It was laid on Thursday around the top bend where the hurdle and chase track converge and where the trees make the course more vulnerable to the effects of frost."
Huntingdon are due to race twice next week, not only on St Stephen’s Day, but also on Tuesday as they have taken on the second Stan James-sponsored day of Kempton's Christmas meeting.
The course will be using 2,500 metres of a 12 metre wide strip of lightweight frost protection covers.
Clerk of the course Fiona Needham said: "It is the second day which we consider most vulnerable should the temperatures drop because once the ground has been opened up by horses on the first day of racing it lacks the covering of grass to protect it from freezing.
"We will lay down the covers straight after racing on Boxing Day to protect the track for the next day and we will lay them down earlier if it was deemed likely to freeze Christmas night.
"The intention is to lay the covers around the entire hurdle track. The course is under a mile and half in circumference and we have enough to cover the hurdle course and we will converge the tracks on at least one bend.
"Because the hurdle fields are larger than those in chases, the grass coverage on the chase track is better and more likely to resist a frost, although, as usual, the chase track will have the take-offs and landings protected."
