Ground Eases As Star Horses Prepare For Cambridgeshire Meeting

Persistent rain has turned the ground on Newmarket´s NatWest Rowley Mile racecourse to Good-to-Soft as top class entries for Saturday´s totesport Cambridgeshire Day have been revealed.

Saturday features the Group One #200,000 Kingdom of Bahrain Sun Chariot Stakes, for which star fillies Soviet Song, Alexander Goldrun, Peeress, Speciosa, Red Evie, Nannina and Flashy Wings have all been confirmed, as well as the #150,000 totesport Cambridgshire, one of the season´s biggest and most eagerly anticipated handicaps, in which Smart Enough remains the heavily backed ante-post favourite. It follows on from a sensational dual Group One card on Friday, the second most valuable day ever staged at Newmarket outside Champions´ Day.

Saturday also features the #50,000 Countrywide Steel & Tubes Joel Stakes (Group Three), a first Group race sponsorship for stalwart Newmarket sponsor Countrywide Steel & Tubes, in which Godolphin have a very strong hand with both Echo of Light and Pinson entered. The opening #30,000 Finnforest EBF Oh So Sharp Stakes (Listed) could see the reappearance of Wait Watcher, controversially disqualified from first place in last week´s Shelbourne Hotel Goffs Fillies Five Hundred at The Curragh.

On Friday Britain´s top two-year-old filly of the season so far, Sander Camillo, is set to tackle Group One company for the first time in the Sky Bet Cheveley Park Stakes (Group One), while Britain´s top two-year-old colt, the unbeaten Dutch Art, is set to take on Hellvelyn in a mouthwatering clash for the Shadwell Middle Park Stakes (Group One). With these two races plus the #250,000 Tattersalls October Auction Stakes all on the same card for the first time, it is a day to savour at the Home of Racing.

The Cambridgeshire Meeting opens on Thursday with a quality card which features two Listed Races, the #28,000 Unicoin Homes Noel Murless Stakes and the #28,000 Rous Stakes.

Michael Prosser, Newmarket´s Clerk of the Course, said at 4pm today (Monday) as he was walking the course: 'It´s been raining all day and has only just stopped. We have had half an inch and the ground is now Good-to-Soft. We have two dry days forecast for tomorrow and Wednesday and then sunshine and showers forecast from Thursday to Saturday.

'We will be racing on the far side of the track on ground that has not been raced on since May. It´s in tremendous shape with a fantastic covering of grass and has taken the rain very well indeed. If we get the dry weather we´ve been forecast for the next two days, I would hope that we might go into the meeting with ground just on the easy side of good on Thursday.'