Cheltenham to start on heavy ground for first time since 2018 as heavy rain hits New Year's Day card

Cheltenham will start racing on heavy ground for the first time in almost six years after torrential rain in the build-up to its New Year's Day fixture eased conditions on Sunday morning.

The track was hit by 15mm of rain on Saturday night and into Sunday morning, with further showers following and light rainfall forecast during racing, which takes place on the New course.

It means conditions will officially be the most testing since the final race of the Wednesday at the 2022 festival, which started on soft ground but was changed to heavy during the day.

A Cheltenham meeting has not started on heavy ground since the 2018 festival, when Summerville Boy powered through the March mud to land the opening Supreme Novices' Hurdle. The ground turned soft later in the afternoon that day.

Clerk of the course Jon Pullin said on Sunday afternoon: "We've had a few showers on Sunday but nothing too significant and we're forecast a dry night and dry morning on Monday. There's some showers around during racing but the heavier showers will come after racing.

"I don't think we'll be drying back too much before racing so I certainly envisage we'll be starting on heavy. It's been a while. We drain very well here but we've had 59mm of rain since we raced two weeks ago and that's a significant volume. 

"We've pushed the rails and fences out so there's a lot of fresh ground, particularly on the chase course."

Just 49 runners were declared across the seven races on Saturday. The fixture is the first Premier meeting, with five races live on ITV.

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