The Cheltenham Festival is set to start on soft ground on Tuesday with growing confidence a significant belt of rain will arrive at the track overnight.
Conditions are currently good to soft, soft in places, but are expected to ease although clerk of the course Simon Claisse doesn't expect much movement either way once the Festival is under way.
He said: "I was delighted after Nicky Henderson came in on Sunday, having walked the course, saying that it was in lovely nick, good to soft, soft in places. We had a bit of rain overnight - just a millimetre or two - but we expect a dry day through Monday, so we have left the official going description unchanged.
"There is a forecast with strengthening signals for a fairly significant belt of rain coming through in the early hours of Tuesday morning lasting up until about noon, 10-12 millimetres, so the expectation is that that would turn the Hurdle, Chase and the Cross-Country courses soft.
"It should be a breezy but mostly dry afternoon, and beyond that for the rest of the week the winds remain blustery and we get a couple of millimetres of rain a day, so I wouldn't expect much change to the soft ground through the week, with the exception possibly of the chase course on the Friday, which is opened up for the Gold Cup and always sits there marginally quicker. It's not going to be good ground, that's for sure."
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