Officials at Cheltenham are being cautious in their watering policy ahead of next week’s four-day Cheltenham Festival. Little rain is forecast for at least the next week but conditions will continue to be monitored. Irrigation on both old and new courses began on Monday with the aim of providing ground on the easy side of good for when the meeting starts next Tuesday.

“We are into a watering regime. We started yesterday and we are only putting on between six and eight millimetres on both the old and new courses,” clerk of the course Simon Claisse told At The Races on Tuesday. The old course is being used Tuesday and Wednesday and the new course Thursday and Friday. The wind has been quite strong of late so we are just having to take the watering fairly slowly to make sure it lands in the right place. At the moment the ground is good, good to soft in places. Whether or not the watering will swing it back to good to soft, good in places we will take a view on in the next couple of days. The watering will hold it where we want it to be for the next three or four days but the anxiety we have at the moment is looking ahead towards next week, the forecast is showing precious little rain. We could have started watering yesterday and put on a quantity of water that would have taken us right through next week. We decided just to be cautious about that. We will then take a view on Thursday/Friday as to whether we feel we will be able to start the meeting on ground on the easy side of good. The cold water we are putting on does not help grass growth. We would love to be in a situation whereby we could end up starting the meeting on perfect jumping ground without having to intervene at all. The water that is going on is only two or three degrees. At the moment it is probably lowering the soil temperature. It might even check grass growth (rather) than encourage it.”

According to the Racing Post WATERING will begin at Cheltenham by Tuesday at the latest after clerk of the course Simon Claisse decided that artificial irrigation was required in order to maintain what was on Saturday described as perfect good-to-soft ground.

Cheltenham Start Watering

Having been denied meaningful rain for a week and with that trend set to continue until at least next weekend, Cheltenham was on Saturday reported to be drying out to the extent that parts of the track could be described as good when Claisse assesses conditions on Sunday.

Claisse said: “We had a little drizzle this [Saturday] morning, but it hasn’t even wet the road and the forecast is now saying that we are looking like having no rain in the next eight days.

“To maintain the good-to-soft ground we have now, we will have to water next week and, unless my forecast changes very significantly by Monday, we will probably start on Tuesday. If you started the festival today the ground would be perfect, so what I want is to maintain it as it is now.

“What we’re likely to do is give all of it 8mm to 9mm over Tuesday and Wednesday. It will be a slow process, though, as we expect overnight temperatures of -6C tonight, -5C on Sunday and -4C on Monday, so it will be a late start to watering each day.

“Up until this morning, we were expecting light but steady rainfall next weekend, but that has now moved to beyond that point. The watering will keep it at good to soft up until the end of next week and then we’ll take a view, based on the latest forecast, as to whether we need to go again.”

Claisse – who describes the crosscountry track as good to soft, soft in places – added:

“Don’t be surprised if by Sunday we have ‘good in places’ on both the Old and New courses.

“We haven’t had any rainfall since last weekend and we’ve had a strong easterly wind, so we have typical early-March drying conditions.

“I’d also ask people to remember that the ground was heavy when we had our press lunch in 2007, but 12 days later, on the first day of the festival, it was good to soft, and by the time the meeting ended we had lively good ground.”

A Met Office spokesman said: “The whole week should be dry, and although there could be the odd spot of rain, it won’t be measurable.

“Looking further ahead, Cheltenham could be one of the last places to get any rain.”