McCain hopes for Haydock go-ahead

Dec 22 2007 by Chris Wright, Liverpool Daily Post

HAYDOCK Park is one of three of today’s jumps meetings that must pass an inspections before racing can go ahead today.

The Merseyside track holds a seven-race card which features the Sodexho Prestige Tommy Whittle Chase and the Central Sports Tim Molony Handicap Chase.

In the former Donald McCain will be hoping the meeting goes ahead as he is expecting his Cheltenham Festival winner Cloudy Lane to improve markedly on his last visit to Haydock when fifth.

Haydock must pass a precautionary inspection at 8am this morning to determine whether racing goes ahead.

The track has been using frost covers and Haydock officials are hopeful of the meeting going ahead despite temperature dropping to just below freezing last night

Clerk of the course Kirkland Tellwright said yesterday: “It’s purely precautionary but in the context of a week of frost, it would be prudent to just have a look

“We would be fit to race today and there is no concern with regards to the forecast.

“We’ve got the frost covers down as Ascot have and even though it managed to get through theirs, they have had a much harder frost than us.

“We’ve not had worse than minus three and it should be around zero or minus one but nothing out of the ordinary.”

Ascot and Newcastle have also called inspections ahead of today’s fixtures.

The feature at Ascot is the BGC Long Walk Hurdle which features former Champion Hurdle winner Hardy Eustace, Jonjo O’Neill’s Black Jack Ketchum and Aintree winner Chief Dan George.

Officials at the Berkshire track have called a 7.30am precautionary check to see if their showpiece meeting can go ahead.

“We’ve called a precautionary inspection for 7.30am,” said Ascot’s head of public relations Nick Smith. “Nothing has changed, we are still extremely confident that we will go ahead.”

Newcastle will have a look at 7.30am TODAY’S NAP: Cloudy Lane (2.35pm Haydock).