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“There was nothing wrong with the ground yesterday. It helped to produce some high class racing”.
Correct CAS, but the true state of yesterday’s ground was GOOD, ie had there been no rain the going today could have quickened up to a true surface of nearer good-firm.
Can understand them watering to make sure it was no worse than yesterday if no rain came.
However – judged by race times – whether they over-watered is another thing.Value Is EverythingWhat a cock up!
How many people would have complained if he hadn’t watered?
Maybe they should get better forecasters if they are going to totally rely on them.
Either watch Countryfile or sign up John Kettley
Ginger, I am reluctant to criticise the Cheltenham management because I have not seen what the weather forecast was last night. However, based on some of the comments here it looks as though SOME rain was forecast, at least. That will inevitably cause the decision to water to be questioned.
It is very unfortunate. The favourite was taken out of the novice race and connections of the favourite in the big race are openly blaming the ground for his disappointing performance.
Maybe the sheer volume of rain might have turned the ground heavy anyway but at least no one could have blamed the management then, fairly or unfairly!
The heaviest rain took a path signficantly further west than forecast last night, so Cheltenham can be cut a degree of slack
Given the amount of rain that appears to have fallen this afternoon it’s likely the ground would have turned soft regardless of whether they watered or not
I’d also be prepared to cut the Met Office some slack as we’re currently situated in the middle of a Col: an area of near-windless lower pressure between two areas of high pressure, which is rather unusual, and in which rainfall patterns are tricky to predict
I’ll stick with the tried and trusted wet finger held aloft and oscillating pine cone
Yeats you make a valid point. I saw around 5 weather forecast sites for the course last night and the forecast was a range between 2mm- 5mm of rain. I can’t blame the clerk of the course for watering based on that information. It was only this morning daylight hours that the sites forecasted heavy rain. That’s a nightmare scenario for the clerk of the course.
Tomorrow looks like a glorious day, weatherwise, so track will dry out somewhat, but given amount of rain today i reck it’ll turn out very tacky.
It was very unfortunate what happened today and I do not blame Cheltenham. However, I do blame the obsession with the need for “soft” appearing in the going description.
There was nothing wrong with the ground yesterday and I do not believe it would have been dangerous even without watering. However, Cheltenham clearly felt like they had to water to keep trainers happy. Then the weather forecast was wrong and we know the rest.
They’ve been very unfortunate but you do wonder how much of this was down to an error from a man new in the job in his first festival, would Simon Claisse have watered? I get that by the time the later races were run so much rain had got in it would have gone soft regardless but for me Nicholls might have a point, would the ground have been bad enough when Bravemansgame was due to run in the 2nd race without the watering? It seemed from the TV pictures to get considerably worse as the afternoon went on.
Edit:
I’ve just read his Racing Post interview for the first time. He’s messed up basically. The rain that fell was forecast but it was the top end at 30% risk. If you’ve got a 30% risk of the ground ending up heavy why on earth are you watering?Yes, he possibly has messed up – but under the unreasonable pressure of this crazy idea that good ground is bad.
Constitution Hill broke the course record yesterday in a searing edition of the Supreme on perfectly safe, good ground. A visually stunning performance.
However, for the sake of horse ‘welfare’ many now prefer for horses to bottom themselves in appalling, swamp-like ground. Where is the logic in that?
Watering is not done to make the course heavy, i know that, but it contributes to it. There are far more meetings run on soft/heavy than with any ‘good’ in the going description to the detriment of the sport
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