• Final decision to be made at 3pm on Thursday, February 11th
• Three extra Hurdle races provisionally programmed

At Exeter Racecourse the temperature got down to -4ºc on Tuesday night and is forecast to do much the same up to Sunday, with daytime temperatures being no more than +4ºc (but feeling like -3), with this in mind it may be necessary to abandon the programmed steeple chases in order for racing to take place.

Barry Johnson, Clerk Of The Course at Exeter, explained: “We got down to -4ºc last night and the chase course in the back straight would not be usable today. The going is currently soft, frozen in places. With the forecast we are concerned that the frost on the chase course will get deeper and being covered by trees the frost will not come out. We have a strip of ground around the centre of the course that has a good covering of grass that we could move the hurdles on to, this would give us a very good chance of putting on an all-Hurdle card. I would like to thank the BHA’s Racing Department for getting these additional hurdles in place. A final decision will be made on Thursday February 11th.”

In response, the British Horseracing Authority has created three extra hurdle races that will take place only in the event that the steeple chases are abandoned.

The provisional, additional hurdle races will close at noon on Thursday, February 11th. Declarations for these races will close in line with the existing races at 10am on Friday, February 12th.