Cheltenham - expect to start on good to soft ground

Cheltenham Festival going: Good to soft expected for day one

By David Ord

Horse Racing

Fri March 07, 2025 · 10M ago

Cheltenham Clerk of the Course Jon Pullin expects to start the Festival on good to soft ground after watering began at Prestbury Park on Thursday.

There is precious little rain in the forecast through to the end of next week but the warm, spring sunshine of this weekend, will be replaced by colder temperatures next week.

Speaking on Friday's Nick Luck Daily Podcast, Pullin said: "We just started selectively watering yesterday, just the areas that had dried up the most. So we’ve started on the back straight and are just continuing around with that selective watering.

“Mainly yesterday was on the New Course, a little bit on the Old but mainly on the New, and we’ll continue to monitor conditions and irrigate accordingly.

“We’re largely good to soft, there are one or two areas now that would be on the quicker side of that, so nearer good ground, and there the areas in the next few hours where we’ll have irrigated and hopefully got us back to that good to soft position.

“Good to soft is where we would like to start, that’s been the position here at the Festival now for a number of years, to start a four-day festival on anything quicker comes with its challenges so we’d like to start on good to soft ground."

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That doesn't mean it wouldn't be allow to dry out to good ground for day two with officials often reluctant to water a track after a day's racing.

“What we wouldn't want it to do is go any quicker than good ground so we’d need to be mindful of that but looking at the forecast I don’t see that being an issue. We’ve got a very warm weekend coming with temperatures around 16 and 17 degrees on Saturday and Sunday with lots of bright sunshine," Pullin said.

“But then it does turn a lot cooler next week and daytime temperatures through the week are seven, eight degrees in the main and we’re now looking at some overnight frosts as well."

In terms of possible rainfall, he added: “Monday the forecasts are indicating there are showers around but we’re looking at one, maybe two millimetres max, but nothing more than that then beyond Monday nothing. Dry, with cooler daytime temperatures."

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