'It's very important' - Chamberlin happy as Lingfield and Chelmsford step up

Ed Chamberlin hailed racing's determination to keep the show on the road after Lingfield and Chelmsford stepped in to provide ITV Racing's coverage on Saturday following cancelled cards at both Ascot and Haydock.

Five races from Lingfield and three from Chelmsford will form an eight-race broadcast on ITV4 between 1pm and 4pm, which includes the Listed Quebec Stakes (3.33) from the Surrey track and the Winter Oaks Trial (3.00).

Ascot was set to host five races on the channel, including the Long Walk Hurdle and Betfair Exchange Trophy, as well as two from Haydock, but both cards were lost on Thursday due to frozen tracks.

With no jumps action in Britain until Monday at the earliest, Chamberlin, who will be presenting from a hub at Ascot, is determined to make sure top-class coverage is retained for the all-weather fixtures.

He said: "It's very important. It's the weekend before Christmas and a lot of people will be at home looking for things to do, so it's important we show something. A number of people deserve great credit for making it happen.

"Tim Williams, our producer for the weekend, was busy this morning making all sorts of phone calls to the BHA and the racecourses themselves – we've all come together to put on the best possible show we can.

"We've rejigged the team as Luke Harvey is now going to Lingfield and we'll bring in Jason Weaver and Mark Johnson, who was such a hit tipping all those winners at the Breeders' Cup. It should be good fun and we have all sorts of ideas to fill the time between races. "

Ed Chamberlin: 'We've all come together to put on the best possible show we can.'Credit: Edward Whitaker

Last week's coverage was dramatically curtailed when Newcastle's all-weather fixture was cancelled minutes before it was due to go ahead, but no inspections have been called for Lingfield or Chelmsford.

The Tote will have a Placepot guarantee of £250,000 at Lingfield on Saturday, while there is Scoop6 win fund rollover of £46,801, and a bonus fund rollover of £15,849.

There will also be a Tote Trifecta rollover race – the 1.15 at Lingfield, a 5f Class 5 handicap, and Chamberlin believes the opportunity to broadcast coverage on Saturday could benefit the sport economically.

"Live sport is so important, largely because of the way the sport is financed. Hopefully we'll get hundreds of thousands of people watching, and eyeballs towards the TV equals turnover," he added.

"People will enjoy the fact there's going to be competitive racing and field sizes look like they'll be good. Last weekend was called off about 12 minutes before we went on air and we thought 'what on earth were we going to do'.

"Thankfully we broadcasted for an hour and got some nice messages on Luke, Ruby [Walsh] and AP [McCoy] going down memory lane, but there are no excuses this time around!"

The going is currently standard at Lingfield and Chelmsford and both tracks are excited to have the spotlight on their Saturday fixtures.

Lingfield's clerk of the course George Hill said: "We're lucky that we've a few nice races for the ITV viewers on Saturday with the Listed Quebec Stakes as well as a Class 2, Class 3 and a couple of competitive handicaps for people to keep involved with.

"We've had very cold nights here with it down to -7C last night and the same again forecast for tonight and Friday, but we would have been okay to race today and the daytime temperatures are expected to go up to 3C, so hopefully we'll be fine.

"The track seems to be handling it okay. We're not working the track overnight, we're just working it when it's above freezing and it seems to work well. If we opened it up overnight the cold would get in, so we seal it up and it insulates itself."

After losing yesterday's card to freezing temperatures, Chelmsford is taking extra measures to make sure its card goes ahead and managing director Neil Graham said: "Fingers crossed all is okay and we're all excited about being on ITV4.

"We're expecting the same temperatures tonight so we'll be harrowing the surface right up to the first race. We've only used three tractors so far but we might have to call up a few more looking at the forecasts."

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