Soft ground now seems increasingly assured for Saturday week's Grand National meeting and conditions at Aintree will be markedly different to those at the Cheltenham Festival.
A cloudburst on Tuesday saw 10mm of rain fall on the track in an hour, followed by a similar amount later that evening and further sleety showers continued throughout yesterday.
"Thankfully, the forecast is for the weather to improve in the second half of next week, but there are more showers due between now and then and it clearly looks as if it's going to be on the soft side," said the clerk of the course, Andrew Tulloch. "The grass is two to three weeks behind where we would want it to be. We take a lot of pride in making the surface as good as it can be, but the snow badly interrupted the grass growth."
On the three occasions in the past 20 years when the ground has been slower than good to soft there have been only six (1994), six (1998) and four (2001) finishers in the National.
Testing conditions would surely lead to a major shake-up in the betting. The favourite, Big Fella Thanks, won in atrocious conditions at Doncaster last season, while Mon Mome should also be fine, but the likes of Backstage, Can't Buy Time and State of Play would surely be disadvantaged.
Whinstone Boy, a noted mudlark, needs 14 higher-weighted horses to come out if he is to get a run but as long as he is declared, backers will have their stakes refunded even if he fails to make the final line-up. The downside to backing him at 33‑1 with William Hill (or 25–1 with Stan James, which offers non-runner, no bet) looks minimal if the rain continues to fall as predicted.
