Cover drive pays off for Newbury
Newbury are confident of racing tomorrow after an innovative course cover allowed today’s fixture to go ahead.
Officials shrouded the entire track in a fleece blanket earlier in the week in an attempt to beat the freeze and stage their two-day meeting.
And the decision has paid off as, despite an overnight frost, the Berkshire track is raceable.
Clerk of the course Richard Osgood told Racing UK: “It’s a very, very light fleece and the idea is we cover the whole course with it and then we could take temperatures down to about minus four without the frost getting in the ground.
“That’s working as planned. We had a frost last night but there wasn’t a problem at all and we could have been racing on the track at 6am this morning.
“The cost isn’t as bad as it seems. The material has probably cost us about £8,000 (€11,676) but there is obviously a large labour cost (of putting the covers down).”
It will be all hands on deck as Newbury race to get the covers back down after racing this afternoon but Osgood reports a promising weather forecast in any case.
“We are putting the covers on straight after racing tonight and it should again take us down to minus four, hopefully we won’t go much lower than that,” he added.
“The encouraging thing tomorrow is we are forecast maximum temperatures of six degrees and the temperature is going to rise very quickly compared with today.”
