Inspection on cross-country in the morning There will be an 8am inspection on Thursday for the Cross Country Chase at the Cheltenham Festival. The race was moved from Tuesday to Thursday following the freezing temperatures ahead of the opening day of the meeting but frost remains on the track. The New Course, set to be used on Thursday and Friday, is expected to be Good to Soft. Simon Claisse, Cheltenham clerk of the course said: "As expected, it didn't freeze until after midnight, which enabled us to get the covers down properly, although it wasn't easy in the dark and we ended up having to bring some additional lighting in. "The temperature dropped to about -4C at about 4am, which was about what we were expecting, but we're already up to 2C today and should go up further as the morning goes on. "At the moment, I think the New Course tomorrow will ride good to soft, maybe good in places, but there is now more rain forecast for Friday, so that will be interesting. The going today is good to soft, soft in places and I think it will stay like that for the afternoon now. "Of course, it's been opened up now and seemed to get a little bit slower as the day went on yesterday - it hadn't been raced on since last April when Champagne Fever won the Supreme Novices' Hurdle. "The cross-country course is soft, but still a little bit frozen in places. We'll inspect for that at 8am tomorrow, but let's hope we don't get any further freeze tonight."
