Updated Cork 'raceable' but Punchestown and Cheltenham both off

The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board has announced that the meeting due to take place at Cork on Sunday is subject to a further precautionary inspection at 8am on Sunday morning.

IHRB Clerk Of The Course, Val O'Connell said "Following an inspection today I am pleased to say that the track remains raceable at the moment. The ground is yielding to soft, soft in places. We did have frost last night but it didn’t get into the ground, it was only a grass frost and it is currently thawing.

"In light of the forecast for further frost tonight and into tomorrow we are going to have a further precautionary inspection at 8am on Sunday to determine the situation"

Sunday's meeting at Punchestown had earlier been cancelled.

Clerk Of The Course, Brendan Sheridan said "Following overnight snow and a forecast for additional snow and severe frost tonight unfortunately we have had to cancel tomorrows meeting. As there is no improvement forecast through the next week with temperatures remaining below freezing the meeting will not be rescheduled in the coming days. A date for the rescheduled meeting will be announced on Monday."

Unfortunately John Durkan Chase day has been cancelled. Update on reschedule available from Monday 12th hopefully. https://t.co/fenW1o5ae1

Saturday afternoon's feature cards at Cheltenham and Doncaster have also been abandoned after temperatures dropped to minus 5C overnight at both venues.

Frost sheets were deployed at Cheltenham after racing on Friday, but as the mercury began to drop it became a race against time.

It took clerk of the course Jon Pullin and his team around three hours to cover the whole of the New Course, which is used for the two-day International meeting, but in the end their efforts were in vain.

"Temp