'Unhelpful' forecast means watering is a possibility before Epsom Classics

An unsettled forecast is providing officials at Epsom with a headache heading into Cazoo Derby week, with watering not ruled out before the two-day meeting starting Friday.

A total of 88mm of rain fell at the Surrey track between May 1 and May 24 leaving the ground soft, but a spell of dry, warm and sunny weather since has dried the ground out, with the official going described as good on Sunday morning and ground no quicker than good to firm the target for Cazoo Oaks day on Friday

The hot spell is set to continue until Wednesday, but thereafter things are less certain and clerk of the course Andrew Cooper is keeping his options open with the threat of showers looming.

He said: "This will be my 26th Derby as clerk of the course so I’ve pretty much ticked off every possible weather scenario, but this is one of the ones you want to avoid.

"Showers right on top of a race meeting after a dry period are about as unhelpful a forecast as anyone doing this job can get quite frankly.

"It’s much better to know you’re either definitely getting rain or you’re getting none at all and then you can plan accordingly. Whatever happens there will always be the legacy of the 88mm of rain still within the profile of the soil and that will help ground conditions."

Andrew Cooper: 'We don't want a situation where we are any faster than good to firm on Friday'

Asked about the prospect of the course being watered, Cooper said on Sunday: "We wouldn’t be doing our job if we weren’t thinking through all eventualities and scenarios so I wouldn't rule anything out about how we handle the week. We’ll take stock tomorrow when we get an updated forecast for the rest of the week."

"We don’t want a situation where we are any faster than good to firm on Friday. I wouldn’t have any issue running these Classics on that ground but with the undulations of the course we avoid anything quicker than that.

"We want to produce safe and fair ground and we’ll do what we need to do to achieve that but that’s not any indication that we will or won’t water.

"I appreciate this is a hugely important race and watering is a very sensitive subject so we will make any decisions we feel we need to make through the early part of this week."

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