Going good, good to soft in places for first day of Cheltenham meeting

Cheltenham’s November meeting will commence on ground described as good, good to soft in places, with clerk of the course Simon Claisse happy that description will hold for the opening day.

“It’s nice, slow, good ground at the moment and I think that will hold for tomorrow,” said Claisse after walking the course on Thursday afternoon. “The good to soft is really down the back straight and coming down the hill, but it’s going to slowly dry out.”

With a dry forecast for the three-day meeting, the ground will inevitably quicken into the weekend, although there are no plans to water during the meeting.

Claisse added: “We haven’t lost a great deal of moisture today and it’s cloudy tomorrow – so I think that will probably hold for Saturday as middling to slow good and it might be a bit quicker by Sunday.”

Conditions are quicker on the cross-country course which stages just one race on Friday but features the return of Grand National and Cheltenham Festival winner Tiger Roll.

Claisse added: “We finished watering the cross-country course this morning, that was the final cycle of irrigation and 65mm has been added over the last ten days. The going on the cross-country course is good, good to firm in places.”

Measures have also been taken to address a problem with the run-in which emerged during the Showcase meeting in October when two horses ducked left through the tape as if to start out on another circuit.

A portable 36-yard length of rail will replace the tape on the inside of both the chase and hurdle courses in a new system devised by Claisse.

“It’s one complete piece of rail and will be in place on the chase and the hurdle course, so there will not be tape in use on the inner,” explained Claisse.

“We needed somewhere to keep a continuous piece of rail and therefore when they’re running on the chase course, the best place to have it is in the gap where there is normally a tape on the inside of the hurdle track and the outside of the chase track.”

The rail can be transferred across to the inside of the chase course to cordon off the intersection when the runners have gone out for the last circuit in races over fences.

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