Cheltenham Festival Weather Forecast: Day One Soft Ground Could Be On The Cards

chelt weather
chelt weather

The latest 2023 Cheltenham Festival weather forecast is suggesting we might get ‘soft’ ground on day one. The tapes go up on another Festival on Tuesday 14th March, but with snow and now rain hitting Cheltenham, the bookies have cut the odds on the day one official going being ‘soft’.

Cheltenham Festival Weather Forecast Suggests Some Form Of ‘Soft’ In the Day One Going Description

The first two days of the Cheltenham Festival are always run on the Old Course and currently the track conditions are ‘good-to-soft’. Most of the country has been hit by cold, wet and snowy weather this week, which has also seen around 6mm of rain hit the Cheltenham course.

Cheltenham Clerk of the Course, Jon Pullen told the Racing Post – “We’ve had 6mm so far,” said Pullin at 4pm on Thursday. “It’s eased off now and we’ll wait and see what the rest of the evening brings. There could be more but we’ll wait and see.”

However, the outlook over next week also doesn’t look great for Festival goers with possible rain on all four days. If that materializes, then Gold Cup day on Friday 17th March could be a ‘wet one’.

One horse that won’t be minding the rain though is the Venetia Williams-trained Royale Pagaille @ 33/1 with BetUK, who runs in the Cheltenham Gold Cup. All his best runs have been on soft or worse ground and was a fair 5th in the race 12 months ago on quicker than ideal conditions. If the Gold Cup Day is soft or worse, then you can expect those Cheltenham odds of 33/1 to vanish without trace.

Clerk of the Course, Jon Pullen Added

“We’ll assess the ground in the morning and go from there,” said Pullin. “There’re a few showers around tomorrow and Saturday. Nothing too significant in volume but certainly not dry days. Then Sunday it’s dry through the day and then there’s another band of rain moving through Sunday evening into Monday.

“Again, it just depends where we sit on that band but we’ll certainly see something, likely somewhere between 5-10mm and then dry Monday afternoon.”

Bookies Have Cut ‘Soft’ Going on Day One Of The Cheltenham Festival To 11/10

You can also have a bet on the day one Cheltenham official going. With the latest news of the wet weather, William Hill have shortened ‘soft’ into 11/10 and is now challenging ‘good-to-‘soft’ @ 4/5 for the favourites berth in this market.

While, if you think the rain will get worse between now and Tuesday – Heavy day one ground is on the table at 8/1.

Latest Cheltenham Day Going Description Betting

  • Good-to-Soft 4/5
  • Soft 11/10
  • Heavy 8/1
  • Good 20/1

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