Cheltenham conditions to ease as Storm Eowyn rolls in

Cheltenham are likely to miss the worst of the weather as Storm Eowyn strikes on Friday ahead of Festival Trials Day on Saturday.

The card is the final meeting at the track before the Festival and features seven races, including five at Grade Two level.

The Betfair Cotswold Chase and the Unibet Hurdle are among them, the latter race set to feature the great Constitution Hill.

The weather could be challenging, however, with Storm Eowyn set to roll in over Britain and bring with it incredibly strong winds and in some places a Met Office red weather warning.

Friday is forecast to see the worst of the weather and Cheltenham only has a yellow warning, meaning conditions should be more settled when the meeting gets underway.

“The ground is currently soft, good to soft in places,” said Jon Pullin, clerk of the course at the track.

“We’re having a little shower or two at the moment, which was forecast, we could get two or three millimetres and then it dries up for the afternoon.

“The storm builds and moves in through the night, and overnight we see wind speeds increase with gusts of 45 to 50 miles an hour.

“The odd forecast has got in excess of 50 miles an hour, so we’re certainly expecting a pretty windy night and some heavier spells of rain to come with that.

“Some forecasts have a below double-digit rainfall and some have a little bit more, eight to 15 millimetres through the night and into the morning.

“Conditions are highly likely to ease from where we are currently. The rain then dies out by tomorrow morning and the winds continue to a lesser degree throughout the early afternoon.

“By the late afternoon everything has calmed down and the forecast looks very settled for Saturday itself.”

Friday’s meeting at Dundalk has been cancelled as the area is under a red warning.

Lingfield, Doncaster, Sandown and Southwell are all expected to race, although the tracks will be monitoring the situation.