Conditions turn soft but dry weather expected for final day

The Cheltenham ground yesterday ended up soft, good to soft in places and clerk of the course Simon Claisse was understandably making no bold statements about Sunday afternoon's likely conditions.

He said: "I had an inclination that with the amount of late rain we had it might get into the ground. I think that's probably what happened midway through the card.

"We think it will now be dry, but we also thought it would be dry throughout Saturday afternoon. I'll probably leave the going description unchanged until the morning."

Big-race winning rider Aidan Coleman described the ground on Saturday as "proper soft and dead more than anything".