Saturday Track Reports August 29 - Five Metro Meetings

Track is currently a Soft 7 with the rail in the four-metre position.

We recorded 26.6mm rainfall in the last seven days, mainly falling Monday night into Tuesday morning. We did have 15 horses gallop directly after that rainfall Tuesday morning, and the track held up quite well.

We have had two weeks off since the P.B. Lawrence, and the track's recovered well. The rail is pushed out four metres from P.B. Lawrence, so nice clear ground in the front straight and certainly around that turn and side straight.

For race day Saturday, a top of 15, partly cloudy with light wind, so nothing that's going to impact racing too greatly.

Track rating: Heavy 9 (now Heavy 8).

Grass coverage: Good.

Irrigation: Nil in the last 24 hours and last seven days.

Rainfall: Nil in the last 24 hours and 31mm in the last seven days at the time of the official track walk.

Rail position and why: +3m 1200m to 600m, True remainder. Moving to the best available ground.

The expectation at the time of the walk was for the track to be around Heavy 8 to Soft 7 on Saturday.

The forecast is for fine weather over the next 48 hours.

The track has a good cover of grass for this time of year; however, there is marking across the whole track.

With our improved weather over the last couple of weeks, we were a Good 4 on Monday and Tuesday. Then we received some rainfall, 8.8mm on Wednesday morning, and then a little bit this morning, 0.3mm, which took us into the Soft 6 range (now a Soft 5).

At our last race meeting at Rosehill we had the rail in the True position and the track performed beautifully. Today we're moving our rail out to the three-metre position, which is a lovely pad of grass last used on June 13.

The early morning drizzle has cleared and we're starting to see some sunny periods, which will maintain throughout the day with a top of 20. Tomorrow looks like the sunshine is increasing with a top of 22.

On race day we will have a top temperature of 21 degrees, mostly sunny conditions and importantly no rainfall. Winds will probably be from the southeast at around 12km/h.