From HK Racing Post (www.racing.scmp.com)Europe's volcanic travel turmoil threatens to spill over to the Audemars Piguet QE II Cup meeting at Sha Tin next Sunday, with two horses stranded and the growing possibility that visiting jockeys will be unable to make the trip. The eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano last week has caused a huge, thick cloud of volcanic ash to settle across European skies, completely shutting down air travel as far east as Poland and now spreading southwards a

From HK Racing Post (www.racing.scmp.com)

Europe's volcanic travel turmoil threatens to spill over to the Audemars Piguet QE II Cup meeting at Sha Tin next Sunday, with two horses stranded and the growing possibility that visiting jockeys will be unable to make the trip. The eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano last week has caused a huge, thick cloud of volcanic ash to settle across European skies, completely shutting down air travel as far east as Poland and now spreading southwards as well.

Aircraft cannot fly through the ash cloud because of the risk of engines clogging up and hundreds of thousands of passengers have had to cancel travel plans from London's Heathrow airport alone, with trainer Sean Woods and the Jockey Club's international racing manager, Mark Player, among them after attending horse sales in England.

The shutdown seriously threatens to dash the hopes of having French galloper Chinchon here for the QE II Cup or English-trained Cat Junior for the Champions Mile.

"I've been in close contact with the shipping agencies we use and they are not giving me any reasons for optimism," Player said yesterday.

"Cat Junior was supposed to fly from London [yesterday] and that has been pushed back to early next week at the earliest. Chinchon was being floated to Amsterdam from Paris on Friday, got halfway and turned back when the airport closed. I'm told there may be a small window later on tonight so Chinchon is again being floated to Amsterdam to be there if it is possible to fly."

Player said no one had been able to say when the ash cloud would disperse, leaving the possibility that jockeys in England and France and due here next Sunday, Christophe Soumillon, Ryan Moore and Kieren Fallon, would also be unable to travel.

"The problem is that the weather right now is unusually stable - I'm looking outside and the skies over London are bright and blue and it's a fabulous, calm day," Player said.

"We need a good storm or strong winds. Nobody knows whether this will be over in a day or a week or longer. Then there's the backlog of millions of people trying to get flights."

Player said that alternative routes by unaffected areas had become difficult owing to a rail strike in France and clogging caused by overwhelming demand. "At the moment, we have four of the visiting horses at Sha Tin and Presvis due to arrive from Dubai on Monday - after that, it looks an hour-by-hour proposition, but obviously the later it gets for the horses the bigger the problem," he said.