RACING Victoria stewards were forced to abandon Warrnambool’s race meeting yesterday after more than 20 millimetres of rain fell at the course in the morning.
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Warrnambool Racing Club chief executive officer John Green said the stewards had no other option than to call off the eight-race program.
“We just had too much rain in a short amount of time. There was nowhere for the water to go. The ground could not absorb the rain which fell in a short period of time. We had 20 millimetres in the morning that was on top of 45.5 millimetres in the last week,” Green said.
“The stewards took into account the safety of jockeys and horses before they made their decision. It’s disappointing that we could not race.”
Warrnambool is scheduled to host its next meeting on Sunday, July 20, and Green is confident the meeting will go ahead.
“We’ve got no concerns about our July 20 meeting going ahead at this stage. The weather changes daily. We only need a day or two of fine weather to turn things around. Our drainage system is very good but on the other hand July and August are the wettest months in the year,” he said.
“We’ve got three jumps races programmed for the July 20 meeting and those races are run on another track, which should help our chances of racing again.”
Warrnambool Racing Club lost six of seven races at its Oaks Day meeting on November 7 last year after a 40-centimetre-deep hole opened up in the track during the first race. The club was then forced to transfer its November 21 meeting to Terang last year due to the unsafe surface, however, following extensive drainage works the problem was fixed.
