'We haven’t watered' - slight change in Aintree going with rain forecast

Officials at Aintree have elected not to water both the Grand National and Mildmay courses on Sunday with an uncertain weather forecast leading up to the start of the three-day festival on Thursday.

After 5mm of water was applied on Friday and Saturday due to an expected dry weekend, the going on the Grand National course was good, good to soft in places and good on the Mildmay track.

However, there was a minor change in the going description on Sunday with the National course now officially good to soft, good in places, the same conditions as the last two runnings of the marathon contest won by Minella Times last year and Tiger Roll in 2019.

"We haven’t watered today," said clerk of the course Sulekha Varma on Sunday afternoon. "We are good to soft, good in places on the Grand National course and we’re good, good to soft in places on the Mildmay.

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"There’s not been much change from yesterday afternoon. I said yesterday we weren’t going to water and we’ve stuck with that. We’ve got rain coming tonight and we’re hopefully looking at in the region of four or five millimetres which would be really helpful, but we’re just having to take things day by day.”

Sulekha Varma: 'There’s still a fair bit of uncertainty in the forecast'Credit: John Grossick (racingpost.com/photos)

Cheltenham's groundstaff faced criticism for watering before day two of the festival and Aintree is facing a similar dilemma with the unpredictability of the forecast.

Varma said: "There’s still a fair bit of uncertainty in the forecast, we’re looking like getting some rain but it’s a case of how much and when at the moment."

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As a consequence of the attritional conditions on the Wednesday of the Cheltenham Festival, champion trainer Paul Nicholls pulled out the likes of Bravemansgame, who holds entries for Grade 1s at Aintree on Thursday and Friday and is part of a pleasing cohort of entries for Varma.

She said: "We’ve got Grand National confirmations tomorrow morning and entries for Saturday but we’re very pleased so far. There are some really nice horses in there and good numbers for the handicaps as well."

Read more on the Grand National:

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