Nightmare for Sky Sports Racing as first fixture of new five-year deal cancelled with cold weather pulverising fixtures

SKY Sports Racing have been dealt a cruel blow with their historic first Newbury meeting.

The debut fixture of their sparkling new five-year deal has been cancelled after falling victim to the cold.

Meetings up and down the country are being axed en masse as sub-zero temperatures grip the country and freeze the ground – with Haydock’s going officially changed to ‘frozen’.

Subscription channel Racing TV saw the end of an era last month when presenter Nick Luck bid farewell to the famous Berkshire track.

Sky’s new deal kicked in on January 1 and tomorrow’s meeting was to be the first on Sky.

But they confirmed this afternoon that the ground was frozen despite frost covers being in place.

A post on X, formerly Twitter, read: “Wednesday’s jumps meeting at Newbury has been abandoned due to frozen areas of ground on the back straight.”

Racecourses everywhere have been left praying their fixtures somehow go ahead amid the cold snap.

Chepstow and Plumpton saw their meetings on Tuesday abandoned.

Southwell will hold a precautionary inspection at 8am tomorrow before their planned fixture.

Thursday’s meeting at Wincanton has been abandoned two days early with the track frozen after temperatures plunged to -4C.

While Newcastle’s fixture on the same day has also been axed.

Haydock was unraceable ahead of its big Peter Marsh Chase card on Saturday.

And Lingfield will hold an inspection at 8.30am on Wednesday ahead of its mega-money Winter Million Festival fixture starting on Friday.

A post showing the track completely undercover was posted with the following message: “The track has been fleeced since Saturday January 13, however ongoing freezing temperatures with lows of -7C have been forecast this week.”

Newbury will hope they have better weather by the time their Premier meeting rolls round on February 10.

Betfair’s Super Saturday is all set to be shown on Sky Sports Racing.

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