Sandown 'relatively pleased' with field sizes after driest January for 25 years

Sandown officials are "relatively pleased" with the field sizes for Saturday's Grade 1 Virgin Bet Scilly Isles card despite the driest January in 25 years at the course.

Like many of his colleagues in Britain and Ireland, clerk of the course Andrew Cooper has found himself in the unusual position of watering at this time of year to provide ground described as a mixture of good and good to soft on Thursday.

A total of 60 final declarations, including five each in the Scilly Isles and Contenders Hurdle, have been made for the seven-race fixture, which in eight out of the last nine years has been run on soft or heavy going.

"We've been dry here since Tolworth Hurdle day with four weeks of dry days and you have to go back to 1997 for the last time we had so little rain in January," said Cooper.

"I don't want to get into too many theories about what the world is doing climate-wise as a year ago we abandoned all the hurdle races and went to an all-chase card after an incredibly wet spell.

L'Homme Presse: star novice chaser the headline act on Saturday at SandownCredit: Mark Cranham (racingpost.com/photos)

"We've been watering since about a week ago, almost exclusively on the chase course and primarily the later half of the back straight, and while we're waiting for rain on Friday morning I'm not seeing any suggestions it's going to be more than five millimetres."

Cooper added: "I'm relatively pleased with the field sizes. There was a smallish entry for the Scilly Isles and Contenders Hurdle and the percentage of those to declare is good. We've got a maximum field of 18 for the big handicap hurdle and that's pleasing as we rejuvenated that contest by increasing the prize-money to £100,000 in 2018."

Field sizes in January, at an average of 8.52 per race, were the lowest since 2018 but still better than five of the years in the previous decade.

The percentage of races with five runners or fewer was 16.69 per cent, the highest in four years and fourth highest in the last decade, driven by a rise in the number of small field all-weather races.

The autumn was marked by a drop in field sizes but wetter weather in December contributed to a recovery.

Watering has also taken place at Musselburgh for the Scottish track's festival trials weekend on Saturday and Sunday.

Clerk of the course Bill Farnsworth said: "Like everywhere else we've been dry and I didn't expect to be watering as much as we have this week. It's been extremely windy and mild and more like spring conditions than winter.

"The ground will probably be good, good to soft in places for Saturday when we're forecast 7-15mm of rain from midday."

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