Continuous rain across Victoria over the past few days has caused widespread chaos for horse racing.
On Saturday morning, Racing Victoria said two country meets — the Gunbower Gold Cup and the Murtoa Cup — had been abandoned due to the deluge, while Flemington, set to feature the Turnbull Stakes, had been rated a Heavy 10.
Watch all the horse racing action on Seven and 7plus Sport
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today
Following a second inspection of the iconic Melbourne track just before 11am, stewards again insisted the track was safe for racing, despite 21mm of rain falling in the past 24 hours and a whopping 79.2mm in the last seven days.
The soaked track, however, was causing concern among punters and trainers, with more than 40 horses scratched from the various races at Flemington early on Saturday.
“The track is currently rated a Heavy 10 and is considered safe for racing to proceed at this time,” Racing Victoria said.
“Murtoa received 42mm of rain overnight and Gunbower 23mm, leaving surface water on both tracks and rendering them unsuitable for racing.
“Having remained in contact with club staff over the past few days, RV Stewards inspected both tracks this morning to give the meetings every chance of proceeding.
“With further rain forecast throughout today, stewards determined the meetings could not be conducted safely for participants and horses.”
A brutal low-pressure system has been crawling across Victoria, with almost an entire month’s worth of rain dumped on Melbourne in less than 48 hours.
On Thursday, Melbourne had its wettest October day in 16 years, with the city soaked by up to 25mm of rain within an hour in the afternoon.
7Horse Racing expert Lizzie Jelfs said a major worry for Racing Victoria was how the track would pull up with Melbourne Cup week just around the corner.
“Even though it’s not raining (at the moment), it’s still quite mild conditions as well, so that’s a really big factor,” Jelfs said on Seven.
“We know that Flemington is a track that is able to hold rain or recover from it quickly, but I think the biggest problem for the VRC was worrying about what they were going to do in the future with Cup week, and hoping that this track wasn’t going to be destroyed in any manner, so that’s the biggest factor.
“But I think they’re pretty happy with how it’s going to proceed.”
Rain has also given parts of New South Wales a soaking but Randwick, set to feature the Group 1 Epsom Handicap, is in decent shape.
In fact, Randwick track manager David Anderson said his course was looking “very good” on Saturday.
“Soft 6 is about where it is in the mark, probably on the better side of that with the rainfall that we’ve had,” Anderson said.
“Currently not raining at the moment, which is a positive for us. It seems to be clearing up. Wind’s going to come out of the northeast at about 20-30kms.
“It’ll be straight into their faces as they race (so) headwind in the home straight … rails back in the true position.”
– With AAP
