Sandown officials keen to avoid ‘nasty piece of weather on Friday’

Sandown officials are on “weather watch” due to an unsettled forecast ahead of the Betfair Tingle Creek Chase on Saturday.

Nicky Henderson’s Jonbon, who won the race on heavy ground last season, is set to return to defend his crown in the Grade One at the weekend.

Conditions at present would allow him to do so on less challenging ground, but after a mild start to the week, there is a less agreeable band of weather that could sweep in towards the latter end.

“If we were racing here today over fences, I would describe the backstraight as good to soft, good in places – the good bit being the water jump to the last railway,” said Andrew Cooper, Sandown’s clerk of the course.

“The home straight and the bends, I’d say are more good to soft, soft in places, as we speak. There’s a bit of run-off from the stands here, the stand side does tend to get a little bit softer as the season goes on.

“The backstraight, being based to a large extent on sand, is very quick drying and quick draining.

“Fundamentally, at the moment we are good to soft, with bits and pieces either side of that.

“We’re enjoying a nice, benign start to the week and it looks dry tomorrow until the evening, 10 or 11 o’clock, then that looks as though it could be the first of a number of fronts potentially carrying a lot of rain.

“Though there isn’t any great confidence in this forecast at the moment, there is some suggestion that it could turn quite wet and very windy overnight on Friday through to Saturday.

“That could also head towards France and the Channel and it would be good if it did, quite frankly.

“We’re on weather watch a bit, with no immediate concerns but it’d be nice if that nasty piece of weather on Friday did take a different route across to France instead of over the south of England.”