Double blow for Catterick clerk with big meeting cancelled and her Cheltenham Festival winner left in limbo

Don't mention the weather to Fiona Needham. Not only has the wintry blast robbed her track of its biggest jumps race, but it has also left her struggling to train her Cheltenham Festival winner.

She is clerk of the course at Catterick, whose North Yorkshire Grand National card on Thursday was called off two days ahead of time, with the snow that had fallen over the weekend now frozen and temperatures forecast to fall as low as -6C.

Needham also trains Sine Nomine, the mare bought for £2,400 who scored a joyous success in the Festival Hunters' Chase at Cheltenham last March.

And the same icy blast which has claimed Catterick and many other meetings is also making life hard at her small North Yorkshire yard.

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Sine Nomine fell two out in the Rowland Meyrick Handicap Chase at Wetherby on Boxing Day, and Needham said: "She's fine, she's come out of it very bright and well.

"But I'm getting a bit frustrated with the weather at the moment, we're struggling a little bit.

Fiona Needham: frustrated by the weather

"We've got a lot of snow and it was real wet, horrible snow that balls up in her feet and now it's just frozen."

The weather is also impacting Needham's choice of next race for Sine Nomine, who unseated her rider five out in a Listed mares' chase at Market Rasen in November but was disputing third place when coming down at Wetherby.

"We've got a few options," she said. "There is a Listed mares' chase at Newbury, but that's next week and with us struggling this week it's not ideal.

"She has an entry in the Great Yorkshire Chase [January 25], and that will depend on the ground as Doncaster can dry a bit, and we may look at something like the Grand National Trial [February 15] at Haydock – it's three and a half miles and it's normally soft ground there."

Also among 37 entries made for the 3m Virgin Bet Great Yorkshire Chase on Tuesday were last year's runner-up Forward Plan, who is trained by Anthony Honeyball, and the 50-1 third Charlie Uberalles, who won over this course and distance for Dianne Sayer last month.

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