Kempton upbeat for King George Officials at Kempton are optimistic ahead of the King George VI Chase meeting on Boxing Day despite the abandonment of Sunday's all-weather fixture because of snow. No inspection is planned at this early stage and officials are putting their faith in a weather forecast that suggests there will be higher temperatures at the end of the week. "The indication is for temperatures to start rising from Christmas Eve and we only need daytime temperatures to get up to 3C to dispel this snow," clerk of the course Barney Clifford told At The Races. "The snow is on the covers and it got down to minus 7C on Saturday night. On inspection on Sunday morning I couldn't lift the covers to see what the ground was like underneath. "One can only hope that the snow on the covers is insulating it and hopefully it shouldn't be any worse than on Saturday. "We will do our best and the primary objective is to get Boxing Day on. We are not thinking of inspecting at this stage and a lot can happen in a week. "A week ago we were perfectly raceable and we deployed the covers, so it's fingers crossed."
