Grand National course turns heavy after rain on Tuesday with further showers forecast on Wednesday

The Grand National course has been changed to heavy, soft in places following a deluge at Aintree on Tuesday afternoon. Conditions changed from soft, heavy in places ahead of Saturday's £1 million contest following 9.2mm of rain throughout the day in Liverpool. The Mildmay course remains soft, heavy in places after the going changed in the morning.

According to Aintree's TurfTrax map, the heaviest part of the track is from Becher's Brook (fence six) through to the 12th fence. That area is marginally bigger than on Monday, when Foinavon (fence seven) was the likely first testing part of the course.

The track has been hit with 40mm of rain in the last week, with a further 4-6mm of rain forecast on Wednesday. Clerk of the course Sulekha Varma said: "It's heavy, soft in places on the National course, we had just shy of 10mm on Tuesday. The wind is helping dry it out nicely already, I walked the track at about 3pm and it was starting to dry.

"We're due a bit more rain on Wednesday but then that's the worst of it out of the way. We're due between 4-6mm during mid-morning and through lunchtime but I think we'll be closer to the smaller amount looking at the forecast and that should be most of the rain by then."

The forecast is for some rain, between 1-3mm, on Thursday evening and into Friday morning and then for it to remain sunny with a chance of shattered showers.

The GoingStick reads 3.0 on the National course while on the Mildmay track it is 3.4 on the chase track and 3.6 on the hurdles.

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