Cheltenham to inspect

Frost is posing a threat to Cheltenham's Festival Trials Day with officials feeling it best to call a precautionary inspection at 8.45am on Saturday.

Although the track was raceable under the covers on Friday, officials are concerned about the possibility of temperatures dipping at a crucial time in the morning for a while.

"We've been perfectly raceable today. But bearing in mind what has happened elsewhere in terms of forecasts and actuals it's just prudent to let people know that we will be taking a look in the morning in case things haven't gone as forecast overnight," said clerk of the course Simon Claisse on Friday afternoon.

"The track is covered and we could probably have raced on the course that wasn't covered by about two o'clock, which wouldn't have been very helpful.

"The covered course would have been fine today, but we do have this phenomenon that the temperature drops significantly in cold spells of weather like this between sort of 7.30am and 9am.

"Last year we went down to minus 7C during that time. The positive thing is that in contrast to where we were last year the forecast for the next 24 hours is better than where we ended up last year and we raced."