'I'm much more optimistic now' - Aintree hopeful Grand National course will recover from rainfall before Sefton on Saturday

Aintree is optimistic there will be no major going issues in advance of Saturday's BoyleSports Grand Sefton Handicap Chase despite the track still suffering the effects of waterlogging caused by severe weather.

The Grand National course, which will be used for the first time since Corach Rambler's success in April, has been affected by the heavy rainfall across Britain and Ireland that has forced numerous meetings to be called off.

Conditions are heavy, soft in places but two areas of concern remain, something clerk of the course Sulekha Varma and her team will work on over the coming days.

"We have probably had 50mm of rain in the last seven days," Varma said on Wednesday "It's been these sharp, heavy showers that have caused a challenge for the drainage systems but the team have done a great job and the drains are all flowing really well now.

"The very large majority of the course I'm happy with, there's just two areas – between fences one and two and near fence 11 – that we're going to try to work at."

Conditions are more favourable on the Mildmay and hurdles course, which are both soft, heavy in places, but Varma is hopeful a more promising forecast will tip things in their favour for Saturday's feature 2m5f handicap over the National fences.

"The team are doing brilliantly and we have options, so I'm much more optimistic now than I was a day ago," she said.

"The forecast for now has improved slightly and we should get less rain than they were talking about before. There's still potential for some heavy stuff on Thursday heading into Friday but it's better than it looked before and the worst could be past.

"These sharp showers can put down a lot in a short period of time, so that’s what we have to keep an eye on."

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