Ascot set to water

Officials at Ascot are likely to turn on the taps over the weekend ahead of the Royal meeting.Clerk of the course Chris Stickels is delighted with the state of the going at the moment, but he feels some watering is needed as he is keen to start the fixture on no worse than good to firm ground."The track is in good shape at the moment. The going is good, good to firm in places," he said. "It's been strange this week because we were forecast an awful lot of rain and haven't received it. The last rain we did have was Tuesday morning. We had 14 millimetres overnight Monday into Tuesday, but despite rain being forecast every day, we haven't had any since. "There's been a lot of rain to the south of us, but we've only had a few spits and spots and nothing really. I would have liked to have seen a bit of rain to be honest. This ground will now start to dry up a bit. I can see us putting a bit of water on over the weekend to hold it where it is. "The aim is to start the meeting on good to firm to good ground and we need to apply a bit of water in order to achieve that." The forecast for the five days of the meeting itself is pretty settled. "The long-range forecast for next week does keep changing a little bit," Stickels told At The Races. "Now I think it's going to remain mainly dry. There is an outside chance of a shower. There is certainly a chance of a shower on Monday but the forecast has been changeable and it wouldn't worry us if we had an odd shower during the week."It could be breezy and the maximum temperatures at the beginning of the week about 18C to 20C. It's due to warm up for the last couple of days of the meeting, Friday and Saturday, but we are not talking really hot, about 22C and 23C. It should be largely dry but quite breezy."