Huntingdon's Peterborough Chase card and Ludlow's Thursday meeting are off
Thursday's National Hunt meetings at Huntingdon and Ludlow have been abandoned following early inspections.
Last Updated: 12/12/12 11:04am
Huntingdon had been due to hold the Grade 2 Peterborough Chase, with Albertas Run, The Giant Bolster and Wishfull Thinking among the entries, although there is a chance the British Horseracing Authority will be able to reschedule it.
They had put covers down to try and protect the ground but a heavy frost still got into the ground and the meeting was called off at an early morning inspection.
Clerk of the course Sulekha Varma said: "We hit minus 4C last night for the second night in a row and the air temperature didn't get above freezing yesterday and it's not due to today or tomorrow
"The frost has got under the covers in places and we just had to make the sensible call really as there's no prospect of it improving enough to race. We are all just utterly gutted as it (the Peterborough) looked like being such a good race."
The British Horseracing Authority are now considering whether the Peterborough Chase can be rescheduled.
They tweeted: "BHA are looking in to possible options for rescheduling the Peterborough Chase from tomorrow's cancelled Huntingdon card."
At Ludlow, clerk of the course Bob Davies reported the track to be frozen in places with little chance of a thaw before racing.
He said: "We have got frozen patches of ground. Where there's plenty of grass it's OK, but the bare patches of ground are not.
"We have a maximum of 0C today and then another frost tonight with another maximum of 0C on Thursday."