Cheltenham call cross country check

Officials at Cheltenham have called a 3pm inspection of the cross country course ahead of tomorrow’s race.

The Glenfarclas Cross Country Handicap Chase is due to be the fourth race on the opening day of the International meeting, but parts of the track are frozen.

“The course remains frozen in places. It actually isn’t much of the track, just mainly the approach to the water jump and some of the repair work between fences that we did after the November meeting,” explained clerk of the course Simon Claisse.

“We are forecast to get up to 2C today and then down to 0C tonight before rising to 4C tomorrow. If the sun comes out today like it did on Sunday, that could well improve the situation.

“We are going to apply a bit of heat to those patches to see if it helps and if we are going in the right direction by this afternoon, we will give it every chance.

“We have horses over from Ireland and France and (trainer) Enda Bolger had a look at the track yesterday and it was in better condition than he had anticipated.”

The main track has been covered all week and Claisse reports it to be in good shape at present.

“It’s so far so good with the main track. The covers are down and we will keep them on tonight and we should be fine if the forecast is correct as it did get a little colder than expected last night,” he added.