Betfair Saturday card at Newbury off but Kempton gets Friday all-clear

The inaugural Betfair Super Saturday at Newbury has been lost to the weather after the track received 4cm of snow overnight. The course was inspected at 9am on Friday and the decision then taken that prospects for the most valuable racecard before the Cheltenham Festival next month were hopeless. However, there will be National Hunt racing of a sort in Britain on Friday, after Kempton's meeting of Flat events designed for jumping horses received the go-ahead following an inspection at 8am. The Cheltenham Festival World Hurdle hope Oscar Whisky is schedueld to run in the last race of the day. Twelve months ago the same Newbury meeting was abandoned after the first race when a freak accident led to the deaths of two horses through electrocution. After safety testing was completed, the meeting was rescheduled to the following Friday and a similar timetable – albeit in less tragic circumstances – is rumoured to be under consideration again. However, British Horseracing Authority race-planning chiefs would be reluctant to consider rescheduling the meeting if there is any risk of further abandonment and next week's weather forecast is sure to figure prominently in discussions, as will the enthusiasm of sponsors Betfair to offer the same level of support for a meeting if it takes place in a midweek slot. "We've had to abandon," Richard Osgood, Newbury's clerk of the course, said on Friday morning. "There's snow on the covers and there is no predicted rise in temperatures or rain which would help shift it. There have been preliminary discussions about restaging the fixture and we are looking to hold it next week but at this stage I know nothing more than that." The loss of the Newbury card, with events including the Betfair Hurdle [formerly the Totesport Trophy], the most valuable handicap hurdle of the season, and the Denman [formerly Aon] Chase, which was expected provide Long Run, last year's Gold Cup winner, with his prep race for Cheltenham, is a significant setback. Sprinter Sacre, the ante-post favourite for the Arkle Trophy next month, and Zarkandar, the third-favourite for the Champion Hurdle, were also due to appear at the meeting. With the Festival at Cheltenham due to open on 13 March, the timing of prep races is crucial, and the list of alternative engagements for a horse like Long Run is getting shorter by the day. If the efforts to reschedule Newbury's key races come to nothing or are again frustrated by the weather, the effects of losing such an important series of Festival trials may still be felt long after the snow has disappeared. The Festival training regimes of a significant number of horses will have been designed around getting a run this weekend, and Nicky Henderson is just one of several leading trainers who has clear concerns about major names – including Long Run and Binocular, the 2010 Champion Hurdle winner – who would benefit from another race ahead of Cheltenham showpiece meeting next month. Hereford will inspect at 11.30am on Saturday ahead of Sunday's scheduled National Hunt card, while Exeter will hold an inspection at 8.30am on Sunday morning to decide whether its meeting the same afternoon can go ahead.