CHELTENHAM PREVIEW: CONDITIONS AT Cheltenham are reported to be perfect ahead of the four-day Festival that starts tomorrow.
Officials stopped watering both Old and New courses on Thursday, but the New course could be watered more later in the week as it is only used on the last two days and the forecast is for dry weather. The going is described as “good to soft, good in places” on both Old and New courses and “good, good to soft” on the cross country course.
“The course is in good nick,” said clerk Simon Claisse.
“The outlook remains pretty dry now until Wednesday when we might get the odd shower amounting to one millimetre and some light but steadier rain on Thursday and Friday.
“We haven’t completely ruled out putting a little extra irrigation on the New course yet.
“We haven’t done that today. We will have a look at the forecast tomorrow.”
It was been a busy morning at the Prestbury Park track with members of the Irish party arriving, including leading Champion Hurdle fancy Solwhit, who is set to take his chance tomorrow after overcoming a late scare.
“Solwhit has arrived, it’s great to see him in the race,” Claisse added. “We’ve had several connections, including Alan King, Paul Webber and Robert Waley-Cohen, doing their Sunday walk round the course and they all report it to be in great nick.”
Go Native will face 11 rivals as he bids to secure a €1.1 million bonus in tomorrow’s Champion Hurdle.
Noel Meade’s charge is seeking the bumper payout after winning the Fighting Fifth and Christmas Hurdles this term, with betting firm WBX.com putting up the extra prize for the hat-trick.
Solwhit is his main market rival.
Nicky Henderson saddles reigning champion Punjabi along with last year’s third, Binocular, and 2009 Triumph Hurdle hero Zaynar.
Champion trainer Paul Nicholls relies on last year’s runner-up Celestial Halo with the Nigel Twiston-Davies-trained Khyber Kim and Philip Hobbs’ Medermit also prominent in the betting.
Starluck represents Alan Fleming with Edward O’Grady’s Jumbo Rio, the Sabrina Harty-trained Won In The Dark and Joanna Morgan’s Raise Your Heart, who has been running on the flat in Dubai, completing the line-up.
Donnas Palm, Ebadiyan and Muirhead withdrew at the final declaration stage.
