Brighton undergoes daily watering since July 13 to maintain ground for festival

Officials at Brighton are looking to maintain good to firm ground for the course's three-day summer festival this week, with the track having undergone daily watering since its last meeting on July 13.

The East Sussex racecourse has had just 3mm of rainfall throughout the whole of July in what has been a challenging summer for maintaining the surface.

"There haven't been any restrictions imposed yet so we're able to keep watering which is important for us at Brighton but obviously we need to be conscious of what we're doing," said clerk of the course Stephanie Wethered.

"We've had 3mm of rain in July and it's been a very dry month and summer. We've been watering pretty much daily since our last fixture. It's going to be another dry week and over the next two days I'll get 10mm on the track.

"Our main aim is trying to maintain good to firm ground. It takes two eight-hour days to water the whole track. We have a Briggs Irrigator and have one person with it the whole time."

On the challenges of keeping the racing surface safe at Brighton, where water is accessed from a hydrant, Wethered added: "We've got chalk as the base to our soil profile and with chalk it just drains through. Every track is different and we're just a little-more freer draining and we've got the sea breeze."

The three-day Star Sports festival of racing begins on Wednesday and is the track's seasonal highlight, featuring the Brighton Mile Challenge Trophy on day one, the Brighton Challenge Cup on Thursday and the Brighton Bullet on Friday.

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