'We're watering every other day' - Ascot clerk pleased with racing surface before royal meeting

Ascot officials have left themselves plenty of leeway should the track catch any thundery rain over the weekend, with clerk of the course Chris Stickels describing the ground currently as "a nice racing surface".

As with much of England west of London, Ascot has been bathed in sunshine for more than three weeks but, with the chance of the weather breaking at some stage before the start of the royal meeting, Stickels is happy to wait and see how the picture develops before Royal Ascot, which gets underway on Tuesday week.

"We’re watering every other day and just replacing what we’re losing," said Stickels. "At the moment we’re a mixture of good to firm and firm. That’s probably where we want it because we could get some thunderstorms this weekend or Monday and longer term, there’s a possibility of some thundery weather next weekend as well."

Temperatures were hovering just below 30C at the track on Saturday and should the showers fail to materialise, Stickels feels he will be in a good place to respond nearer the time.  

"At the moment we’re just managing it so we can apply more water if we need to when we get closer to the event, or stop if we get rain," he said. "We’re very happy with the way the track is at the minute, the grass coverage is lovely and thick and it’s a nice racing surface.

Stickels added: "Last Tuesday marked three weeks since we last had any rain so we're nearly a month being completely dry."

Four of the last six Royal Ascots have begun on going officially described as good to firm, while only Circus Maximus (good to soft in 2020) and Tepin (soft in 2016) have won the opening Queen Anne Stakes in the last decade on ground with any ease in it. 

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