Ground unchanged at Cheltenham

Cheltenham are still predicting ground on the slow side of good for the opening day of the Festival after a chilly Saturday night.

The track saw some overnight snow but clerk of the course Simon Claisse reports that to have disappeared on a cold day at Prestbury Park.

“The little sprinkle (of snow) we had has gone and we may get a little flurry later on today,” said Claisse.

“Temperatures are one or two degrees, there’s no frost in the ground, so we wouldn’t have had any problems racing today at all.

“We had a wind chill that took us down to minus nine at 7am. Just as I was on my way in here, I got a phone call from the stable yard manager saying the water had frozen in both yards but fortunately that is now back up and running as we have about 40 horses on site at the moment.

“I think that’s the worst of the cold weather we are anticipating over the next week.”

Claisse is anticipating some further rain on Monday and he believes that precipitation could just turn the ground more towards the easy side.

“Tomorrow is not supposed to be as cold as today. We are due to have a little bit of rain, maybe two or three millimetres, on Monday and then on Tuesday it is due to be cloudy with rain at times and daytime temperatures of up to eight degrees.

“If those sort of amounts of rain come, we are talking of a maximum of five or six millimetres, it’s not going to be too different to what it is now, the slow side of good,” he told At The Races.

“We are currently good, good to soft in places – it may just flick it the other way good to soft, good in places.”