Cheltenham Festival ground has dried out but plenty of rain expected overnight

The going at Cheltenham was changed to good to soft, soft in places on Friday morning following a dry night, and with afternoon rain arriving later than anticipated clerk of the course Simon Claisse made no further amendment.

However, plenty more was expected overnight, and Claisse will reassess conditions first thing on Saturday.

Claisse said: "We had a dry night and after walking the three tracks again I reversed the emphasis to 'good to soft, soft in places' all round.

"Rain was forecast from midday, but it didn't arrive until around 3pm and as we speak [at 4.30pm] we've had only a millimetre so nothing has changed."

The forecasts are not consistent across the board, but Claisse reckons the track can expect "between 10mm and 11mm by Saturday morning, then a couple of millimetres on Sunday and a couple more on Monday".

However, he added: "While I've said before we could get around 17mm in total I'm not going to get hung up on precise amounts. It could be as much as that, but it might not be."

The forecast for Wednesday is for up to 9mm, then Thursday and Friday should be dry, but Claisse points out that's still a long way off. He expects temperatures of around 10C or 11C from now onwards.

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