RACING: If the current cold snap is to claim a race meeting in Ireland this week, it looks like being tomorrow's scheduled fixture at Navan.
A 2.0 inspection this afternoon has already been called after the track was declared to be unraceable yesterday because of frost.
"If the frost and even snow is as severe as is forecast then we could be in trouble," admitted the Navan manager Richard Lyttle.
"I think it can go either way. Obviously, if we get the chance to run we will but we have to be realistic and there is a heavy frost forecast. Basically, it's in the hands of the gods," he added.
No such problems are expected for Thursday's Thurles card which features the Kinloch Brae Chase. "It got down to minus four but we could have raced here at 9.30 this morning. Touch wood we are not expecting any snow and it is just cold in the mornings. I don't anticipate any problems," said the Thurles manager Pierce Molony.
Tramore have no anxieties about today's card going ahead, and the same comment applies to the card scheduled for Fairyhouse on Saturday. "We plan to have schooling races here on Tuesday and at the moment they are going ahead," reported Dick Sheil in Fairyhouse.
Not for the first time, weather worries have passed by Tramore which was bathed in sunshine yesterday. "If anyone escapes we should, since we are by the sea and so far south," said manager Sue Phelan.
"We could have overnight frost but that will be well burned off by 11.0. Unless something catches us by surprise, we will be fine."
That news will be well received in the Carlow-Kilkenny area where the brothers Willie and Tony Mullins will be preparing to send a couple of fancied runners.
Piercing Sun was part of a very good St Stephen's Day for Tony Mullins when he beat Cane Brake at Leopardstown and the novice hurdle looks his for the taking on the forecast "heavy" surface.
Verrocchio was an expensive odds-on failure at Thurles last month after a very promising effort behind Berkeley Note at Punchestown.
Some of Willie Mullins's string were not firing on all cylinders then, however, and Verrocchio looks worth another chance against Hard Shoulder, who was a distant runner-up to Hasanpour at Cork.
