Huntingdon postpone big day

Thursday's scheduled fixture at Huntingdon Racecourse - including the track's most high profile race of the year, the totesport.com Peterborough Chase - has been abandoned due to frost.

But the whole meeting is being switched to Sunday (December 12) by which time the racecourse management is optimistic that a thaw will have set in.

The racecourse's managing director Sophie Hodgkinson said: "We have been working on a 'plan B' for the last couple of days because it didn't look as if warmer temperatures would arrive before Thursday.

"With the help and co-operation of Jockey Club Racecourses, the British Horseracing Authority, the Levy Board and our main sponsor Totesport, we have been able to move all the races to Sunday.

"This is Huntingdon Racecourse's showpiece fixture of the year, and we're delighted that we have been given another chance."

Daytime temperatures on Saturday and Sunday are forecast to be 6C or 7C, so the racecourse is optimistic about staging racing.

The original entries for the seven races - made last week - will stand, and trainers will declare on Friday morning which horses will run on Sunday.

A high-class field of runners is in prospect for the £65,000 totesport.com Peterborough Chase over two and a half miles.

Last year's winner Deep Purple is poised to come back in a bid to triumph in successive seasons.

Ten-year-old Racing Demon - the horse that won the race in both 2006 and 2007 - might have been expected to be the veteran in the race, but that honour goes to 12-year-old Ollie Magern from the Cheltenham Gold Cup winning stables of trainer Nigel Twiston-Davies.

There could also be a touch of showbiz at the racecourse too, because Riverside Theatre - owned by actor James Nesbitt - is entered.

The totesport.com Peterborough Chase is the main attraction of an afternoon with seven races which start at 12.35pm and finish at 3.35pm. Gates open at 10.35am.