Watering in operation at Aintree Aintree has started watering its three tracks ahead of the John Smith's Grand National meeting, which begins on Thursday. With little rainfall forecast during the week, course officials on Merseyside are striving to maintain perfect underfoot conditions for the big one on Saturday. Andrew Tulloch, regional head of Racing North West and Aintree clerk of the course, said: "We started watering (on Sunday) at 10am and everything has been watered, the Mildmay, Hurdle and Grand National courses. "By the end of today, all the courses will have received one round of watering of between three and seven millimetres. "We will reassess the situation as the week goes on and water as necessary to maintain the going as just on the soft side of good on the Mildmay and Hurdle courses. "We are aiming for good to soft, good in places or good, good to soft in places on the Grand National course. Temperatures are not expected to get up to more than 8C or 9C this week so there will be little evaporation and we are aiming to maintain the going as it is now. "The soil temperature last year was 9C, while this year it has reached just 5C. The wind will dry the top surface but underneath the ground is quite moist. There is no meaningful amount of rain forecast between now and Saturday - one millimetre at the most, plus maybe a few wintry showers."
