Ground poser for Ascot

Ascot’s new clerk of the course Chris Stickels admitted today that for the foreseeable future it will be “a struggle” to produce identical conditions on the round and straight courses.

Speaking ahead of next week’s Royal meeting, for which the going is presently ‘good to firm, good in places on the round course’, Stickels admitted that drainage work on the newly-relaid home straight meant that conditions were unlikely to ever become testing – a fact which became evident at the track’s pre-opening fixture on May 27.