Snowbound trainers in Oxfordshire have been battling to keep their horses on the move during the big freeze.

Stables were brought to a virtual standstill by last week’s Snow, the heaviest fall for 29 years.

Charlie Longsdon’s Hull Farm yard, near Chipping Norton, was among the worst hit with 15-20 inches of the white stuff.

Valiant efforts were made to get the staff in.

Longsdon said: “We tried collecting a few of the lads from around the local area, but we aborted the rescue mission when the jeep nearly slid into a ditch.”

Despite the adverse conditions, some of the string were able to canter in the knee-deep fresh snow.

Temperatures dipped to -15 the following night, and failed to get above -5 the next day.

But after Longsdon and his team cleared the snow from round the outdoor school, a tractor and power harrow was used to break the frozen surface inside to allow 20 horses to trot and hack around.

His string have continued to exercise in the outdoor school, and Longsdon added: “It will also act as a little break and freshen them up from the first half of the season and hopefully they will continue to run well until the end of May.”

Around nine inches of snow fell at Paul Webber’s Mollington stables, near Banbury.

However, the staff at Cropredy Lawn made remarkable efforts to get into work.

First in was John Gregory, who having attended to his cows at 3.30am, arrived soon after 4.30am to feed the horses.

But probably the most amazing effort came from Danny Pebody, who accompanied by his dog, Frank, ran ten miles from Lighthorne.

Webber’s string were confined to trotting exercise in the indoor school for the first day of the white-out, with the horses cantering on snow later in the week.

“We will keep them ticking over in this manner until there are signs of a thaw, when we can step up their work,” he said.

It was a similar story in the south of the county where Eve Johnson Houghton’s Blewbury yard, near Didcot, was bombarded by about a foot of snow.

To make matters even trickier, her Woodway yard is situated up a hill, with the icy road making access difficult.

She reported: “It is seriously cold up here, but the staff have all been amazing, getting up the hill in blizzard-like conditions just to make sure that the horses are all OK.

“It has been incredibly hard work for all.

“Although we have not been getting all the horses ridden we have had them all out on the walker everyday, so they have been pretty much getting a full exercise.”

Johnson Houghton has been able to canter some of her string in the snow up the peat moss gallop on the downs.

They included Judd Street, who can look forward to sunnier climes as he is off to the Dubai Carnival, and Support Fund, who finished a neck second to Goodbye Cash in front of the Channel 4 cameras at Kempton’s Polytrack on Saturday.

The big freeze has also presented problems for Henrietta Knight’s West Lockinge stables, near Wantage.

“Training has not been easy with frozen gallops and icy roads,” she reported.

It has also complicated running plans for the likes of rising star Somersby as she plots his path to the Cheltenham Festival.

The six-year-old, an impressive winner of the Henry VIII Novices’ Chase at Sandown last month, is likely to have one more run before a crack at the Arkle Trophy on March 16.

“He’s going the right way and we’re delighted with him, but the pity is we probably won't have any racing in January, so he won’t get the race we wanted to run him in,” said Knight.

“We may just have to go a bit closer to the Festival and race him in February instead.”