Four fences omitted down Haydock back straight as frost puts paid to Ludlow card

Haydock survived the cold snap to stage the only jumping action on Wednesday, but just one fence will be jumped down the back straight in the two chases on the card, with the other four omitted as frost remains in the divots.

Wednesday's meeting at Ludlow has been cancelled because of frost. Officials at the Shropshire circuit had been optimistic about staging the seven-race card, but temperatures dipped to -2C last night.

Haydock card

A 7am check this morning was inconclusive so clerk of the course Simon Sherwood and his team took another look at 9.30am when they returned a negative verdict.

There was also better news at Leicester, where tomorrow's fixture – much to the relief of track officials – is set to go ahead.

Leicester card

"We're heavy on the hurdles and the chase course is good to soft, soft in places, and heavy where it crosses over the Flat course," clerk of the course Jimmy Stevenson said this morning, who is looking forward to getting back to business after losing four fixtures in a row.

"We're all positive and it's nice to be starting our jumps season. We've been exactly the same as Doncaster where we've lost our last two Flat and then our first two jumps to waterlogging so we're very pleased to eventually get going and we're looking forward to it.

"The course looks fantastic, it's just been saturated but thankfully the last five days have been dry and that's what we needed. We've got some slight frost, which isn't causing us any problems, but generally it's in beautiful condition and all ready to go."

No problems are reported for Market Rasen and Wincanton, which also host jumps meetings in Britain tomorrow.

Get ahead of the game with Get Your Eye In - exclusive Saturday preview content on racingpost.com and the Racing Post mobile app from 2pm on Friday