Four British horse racing meetings called off, one remains amid heat warning

Four of Britain's five scheduled horse racing meetings on Wednesday have been abandoned after the Met Office issued a rare red warning for extreme heat across parts of England and Wales. The alert runs from 09:00 BST on Wednesday to 21:00 Thursday and forecasts temperatures possibly reaching 38 or 39C.

The British Horseracing Authority policy requires fixtures to be called off when racecourses fall inside a red warning zone.

The same rules prohibit transport of horses from or through those areas. Worcester's National Hunt card, the Flat meetings at Salisbury and Kempton, and Ffos Las's jumps fixture were all affected. Ffos Las lies just outside the zone but would have required participants to travel through the high-risk area.

Carlisle's meeting in Cumbria remains scheduled. It features the historic Carlisle Bell and Cumberland Plate. Trainer Alex Hales, who had two runners entered at Worcester, supported the cancellations.

"We just have to be sensible," he said. "We try to work the horses earlier and get the main bits of work done before the sun really comes up and, with travelling, the lorries have fans in them now to keep the temperatures down. " The BHA said it will continue to liaise with racecourses hosting fixtures in amber warning zones this week to consider any further procedures that may be needed.