Aintree to be watered

Officials at Aintree are set to water the Mildmay and Hurdle tracks ahead of the three-day Martell Grand National meeting which starts tomorrow.

And it is likely than some watering will be done on the Grand National course itself later in the week after forecast rain failed to materialise at the Liverpool track.

Clerk of the course Andrew Tulloch said today: 'We`ve gone good on the Mildmay and hurdle tracks.

'We were meant to get some rain coming in last night but we missed that and the forecast they have now given us is a nice, dry summers day nearly.

'The cloud cover we haven`t got either which they said we may get.

'So we will be watering odd sections of the Mildmay and hurdle courses just to maintain the going.

'The Grand National course is good to soft, although we will be changing that later on if that`s obviously drying out as well.

'We`re not watering it at the moment.

'We will be watering I would have thought sometime in the next couple of days becausethe forecast is basically dry now for the rest of the meeting.

'There is a good grass covering and, although we can`t please everyone, we would like to produce some decent jumping ground and that`s what our aim will be.'