Cheltenham confident Trials day issues will not resurface

Clerk of the course Jon Pullin is confident Cheltenham have resolved the issues that blighted Trials day ahead of the Festival in a fortnight’s time.

Excavation showed that it was, as we thought, a collapsed drain. We took the opportunity then to replace a section of the ground in that area, and then to also camera to where we’ve got access into the remainder of the drain to give us a bit of comfort.

Jon Pullin

Investigations Resolve Dramatic Trials Day Track Failure

The final race on the card was delayed by almost 30 minutes and eventually run in rapidly fading light after the railing was moved to avoid a hole that developed on the course, with investigations since concluding the issue was a collapsed drain.

The ground around the drain has been replaced and Pullin believes racecourse staff have done all they can to ensure safe conditions at Prestbury Park for the Festival.

He said: “On the day we were pretty confident it was a drain issue. We obviously started the investigations straight away and excavation showed that it was, as we thought, a collapsed drain.

“We took the opportunity then to replace a section of the ground in that area, and then to also camera to where we’ve got access into the remainder of the drain to give us a bit of comfort that we haven’t got any further problems.

“We also took the opportunity to conduct a ground penetration radar survey of the course as well, again just to give that comfort that we’ve checked everything that we can above ground.”

Saturated Ground Data: Rainfall Totals Double Prior Year

Pullin also revealed that since the turn of the year, the racecourse has had twice the amount of rain they had to deal with ahead of last year’s event.

He said: “It’s been a very wet start to the year. I was looking back at some rainfall data at the back end of last week and we are just about double the rainfall from the 1st of January to the end of last week than the prior year.

“We have had about four times as much as 2022 and 2023, so a significantly wet start to the year.

“Thankfully we’ve now had a couple of dry days and the forecast is suggesting a couple more, which is good. There’s a little bit of rain around at the end of the week and the forecast into next week at this stage is looking drier rather than too wet.

“If we were racing today we would be soft ground on both courses, both Old and New. The Old course would be a little more testing, it would be a little softer, so there is a difference between the two courses.

“It will be a nice warm day tomorrow (Wednesday) so we may see some improvement on the New course, but given the amount of moisture that’s in the ground and through the soil profile at the moment it wouldn’t take a lot of rain to get us back to soft.”