GRAND NATIONAL NEWS

Good to soft expected at Aintree

Sulekha Varma, Aintree’s course clerk, has revealed the going is likely to be good to soft for this week’s Grand National meeting.

The famous Merseyside venue is gearing up for another fantastic Grand National meeting, with the most valuable jump race in Europe taking place on Saturday at 17:15, marking its return to the calendar after the coronavirus pandemic forced the 2020 edition to be cancelled.

Much to the disappointment of racing fans, Tiger Roll will not be gunning for a third race success, but a stellar field will still battle it out for glory and Cloth Cap, trained by Jonjo O’Neill, leads the betting with several outlets.

Ground conditions can play a major part at the Aintree meeting and Sulekha Varma, clerk of the course, revealed on Tuesday morning the going should be good to soft for all three days of action.

“We’re good to soft, good in places and we’ll carry on watering today,” she said. “We’re putting between 3mm and 6mm on the Mildmay, with the aim of getting that to good to soft.

“The Grand National course will have another water tonight and I expect will be good to soft all over by tomorrow morning. We’ll aim to keep it the same for Thursday.

“The forecast is predominantly dry, it’ll just be showers passing, and other than that we’ll have the odd flakes of snow. The daytime temperatures are high enough that any snow wouldn’t be an issue.”