Cheltenham take cautious approach with watering

Officials at Cheltenham are being cautious in their watering policy ahead of next week's four-day Festival.

Little rain is forecast for at least the next week but conditions will continue to be monitored.

Irrigation on both old and new courses began on Monday with the aim of providing ground on the easy side of good for when the meeting starts next Tuesday.

"We are into a watering regime. We started yesterday and we are only putting on between six and eight millimetres on both the old and new courses," clerk of the course Simon Claisse told At The Races on Tuesday.

"The old course is being used Tuesday and Wednesday and the new course Thursday and Friday.

"The wind has been quite strong of late so we are just having to take the watering fairly slowly to make sure it lands in the right place.

"At the moment the ground is good, good to soft in places. Whether or not the watering will swing it back to good to soft, good in places we will take a view on in the next couple of days.

"The watering will hold it where we want it to be for the next three or four days but the anxiety we have at the moment is looking ahead towards next week, the forecast is showing precious little rain.

"We could have started watering yesterday and put on a quantity of water that would have taken us right through next week.

"We decided just to be cautious about that. We will then take a view on Thursday/Friday as to whether we feel we will be able to start the meeting on ground on the easy side of good.

"The cold water we are putting on does not help grass growth. We would love to be in a situation whereby we could end up starting the meeting on perfect jumping ground without having to intervene at all.

"The water that is going on is only two or three degrees. At the moment it is probably lowering the soil temperature. It might even check grass growth (rather) than encourage it."