Storm Claudia set to hit Cheltenham

Cheltenham is braced for the impact of Storm Claudia, with Gloucestershire hit with an amber weather warning ahead of the three-day November meeting.

Prestbury Park could be set for more than 30mm of rain from Thursday evening through Friday, which could dampen both racegoers and spirits alike on an opening day to the course’s biggest meeting outside of the Festival.

Clerk of the course Jon Pullin is predicting the impact of the overnight rainfall could see the meeting begin on soft ground from its current good to soft, good in places description.

“I think given the forecast, and if that’s anything near correct and we get the significant volume we could get pre-racing, I would be fairly certain we will be starting on soft ground,” said Pullin.

“I’m out on the track in glorious sunshine and it’s a beautiful afternoon and the track is in great shape.

“We would be good to soft, good in places, but we are bracing ourselves for the storm that is going to move in from late tonight and through the early hours and all through tomorrow and tomorrow night as well.

“Gloucestershire now has an amber weather warning for rain, so we are anticipating significant rain both before racing and during racing tomorrow.”

The knock-on effect of Friday’s deluge could signal testing conditions for Saturday’s Paddy Power Gold Cup and Sunday’s Unibet Greatwood Hurdle cards, with Pullin set to take a continual view throughout Friday afternoon in anticipation of further deterioration to the ground.

He went on: “The rain blows through sort of after Friday night and we should be dry from the early hours of Saturday and then dry for pretty much the rest of the weekend but we are just waiting to see what we do get tomorrow.

“We would just have to see throughout the day where we go from there, but I see us starting on soft.

“At the moment we are perfectly raceable and we foresee no issues looking ahead at this stage but we’ll just have to monitor conditions on an almost hour-by-hour basis.

“It is an amber weather warning for rain, there are significant volumes forecast, so it’ll just be a case of watching and seeing how we go.”