Cheltenham lost to frost

Today`s meeting at Cheltenham has been abandoned because of frost. The racecourse executive had no choice but to call off today`s important card that was to have featured the Stg£100,000 Tripleprint Gold Cup.

'It`s been very disappointing obviously, but we had been hoping that the temperature would rise this morning,' clerk of the course Simon Claisse told Channel 4 Racing.

'Unfortunately between six and seven this morning the temperature just started to dip and it went right back down to minus four and a half having got up to minus two and a half.

'The cloud is coming over and that is going to keep it cold. If the sun had come out for a little bit of time we think it might have had a chance.

'Where we have replaced divots from racing yesterday they have frozen in little lumps and they are just hard enough that we think they could cause a problem.

'About 99 per cent of the course is fine and we thought that if the sun did come out we would beokay, but horse welfare and safety has to be paramount.'