Saturday’s racing at Randwick postponed after stewards deem track ‘not suitable’

Horse racing has been thrown into chaos with Saturday’s action at Randwick postponed.

Racing NSW Stewards issued a short statement on social media on Saturday morning.

“Randwick Postponed. Inspection deemed track not suitable for racing,” the statement said.

Another shock call followed later on Saturday when it was revealed that the highly anticipated Group 2 Missile Stakes (the first stakes meeting of the Sydney season) would be abandoned, rather than rescheduled.

However, the $160,000 Premier’s Cup Prelude was switched to the midweeks at Kensington.

The decision not to include the Missile Stakes in the mid-weeks has baffled trainers.

General Salute trainer Gerald Ryan said: “It has me beat why they can run the Prelude on Wednesday and not the Missile Stakes.

“We will probably have to go to the Show County Quality (August 23) with General Salute now.’‘

And Group 1 winner Private Eye’s trainer Joe Pride also said he was “disappointed”.

“I’m disappointed and it probably means Private Eye goes to Caulfield next Saturday for the PB Lawrence (Stakes),’‘ Pride said.

“There is the option of waiting for the Winx Stakes (at Randwick, August 23) but he won’t run in both. I am happy for him to go to 1400m straight away as he is ready for it.”

The course proper was a heavy 9 on Thursday after receiving over 155 mils of rain this week. That amount was the equivalent of the usual monthly total in seven days.

With another dumping overnight, the track simply couldn’t cope.

“We conducted a track gallop just before 6am this morning and the feedback from the riders was, the track was as heavy as it could be and we didn’t need any further rain,” Racing NSW chief steward Tom Moxon said earlier on Saturday.

“Unfortunately, that rain fell a short time after that.

“There are some parts of the track that has surface water present and the forecast is for more showers during the day.”

Race meetings at country tracks Louth and Casino have also been called off.

In fact, the only meeting that will go ahead in NSW on Saturday is in Newcastle.

Disappointed fans were quick to turn on Randwick’s inability to deal with heavy rain.

“Hopefully they move the meeting from the Randwick swamp to Rosehill, a decent track that can cop some rain,” one fan fumed on X (formerly Twitter).

While form analyst Mitchell Bazley said: “Crazy how quick they’ll call it off at Randwick but they’ll let the horses travel through mud at Rosehill. Proper double standards in the duty of care games. It’s a joke.”