Good to soft conditions anticipated for Festival opener

Cheltenham team monitoring forecast with watering on hold.

Further watering at Cheltenham has been put on hold with conditions close to the target of good to soft for the start of the Festival on Tuesday.

The first two days are run on the Old Course where the going was described as good to soft, soft in places after four millimetres of rain fell overnight on Saturday.

However, the next measurable rain may not come until Wednesday, with Thursday and Friday expected to be dry and mild.

The New Course, where racing takes place on Thursday and Friday, is soft, good to soft in places. The last watering was on the New Course on Friday.

Clerk of the course Jon Pullin, overseeing his first Festival, said: “We are certainly not doing any watering at the moment and we’ll monitor conditions and see how much it dries before making any decision on any further watering.

“Given where we are currently and the forecast ahead, we will be somewhere around good to soft for the start of the meeting.

“We’ve got a mainly dry forecast during the day today. There is a risk of a light shower but nothing significant in volume. Then we are dry tomorrow, dry Tuesday with temperatures around 13-14 C.

“There is a little bit of rain on the radar for Wednesday at the moment, so we are keeping an eye on that. At the moment it looks like 2-3mm and then Thursday and Friday looking dry, bright and sunny and temperatures up to 14C. There doesn’t look as though there is much rain around.”

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