Wednesday 10 June 2015 17:11, UK
Good ground for the start of the five-day Royal meeting on Tuesday is the aim of Ascot clerk of the course Chris Stickels.
Conditions on Wednesday afternoon were described as good, good to firm in places but with mainly dry conditions forecast for the next week or so, further watering is planned.
"We are a mixture of good and good to firm," said Stickels.
"We are expecting some thundery showers Thursday night into Friday, and then from Saturday onwards it looks as though it's going to be mainly dry and set fair, certainly to the middle of the week.
"We are going to start watering again tomorrow morning.
"Mainly good ground is what we'd be aiming for to start the meeting if we've got a dry week forecast.
"Ideally we wouldn't want to have to water Tuesday night, but we're quite likely to have to water maybe Wednesday night, maybe Thursday night to look to holding it at around good to firm.
"It would be nice to start the meeting at good, then we'd be happy to let it dry out to good to firm and we'd like to hold it there through until Friday. We'll have to see what happens, but we have to monitor weather conditions and the forecast as the week goes on.
"The temperatures are set to warm up over the next few days, but next week they will be around 19C. The forecast will become clearer the nearer we get to the meeting."
