Goodwood get ready for Glorious ... all they need is rain to stop

Work is going on around the complex to get everything looking perfect in time for the opening day of the festival on Tuesday, July 31.

The wet weather is holding up a few spruce-up jobs and preventing the groundstaff paying as much attention to the racing surface as they’d like.

But ever-optimistic clerk of the course Seamus Buckley reckons there’s a dry spell coming just in time for the final preparations for Glorious.

Racecourse MD Adam Waterworth said excitement was building at the track and race-goers would see some new features at the festival.

“Our aim is to freshen up the racecourse and the festival each year,” he said.

“This year we’re again putting in a temporary restaurant above the Gordon’s Bar and and we’re doing work behind the Charlton Hunt Stand on the old paddock.

“The 1812 Bar, refurbished for this season, is proving very popular. There are lots of jobs getting done and we’re confident everything will be just right for the festival.”

Buckley said: “I’m not worried about the ground. It has taken it well and drains very quickly. Keeping the grass to the standard we like to race on has been hard.”

Buckley said the weather forecast was for another eight days or so of unsettled conditions, but there was the promise of a dry spell after that.

“There’s light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “If we could be dry for a week or so before the festival, that would be perfect.

“It’s been the worst summer in all my time here. I’ve never known not needing to water for the June Friday evening meetings, for example.

“But the condition of the course is good.”