Saturday Track Reports October 3 - Five Metro Meetings

The heavens have opened. We’ve had 51mm and counting, and that’s all fallen in the last 24 hours. It’s a total of 57mm for the week, so plenty of rainfall, and we’re on a Heavy 9 as of Friday morning.

The rail for tomorrow’s meeting is in the nine-metre position. That’s our traditional spot for Turnbull Stakes Day, protecting the inside for Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup week and protecting that ground.

With the big fields, I’d expect it’ll be a genuine heavy track and they’ll use plenty of the track.

Tomorrow morning, quite heavy rain is forecast in the early hours, between 5am and 10am. After that, there’s still a lot of uncertainty as to whether that eases off or whether it lingers around during the day. Hopefully that can clear away in the early part of the morning and we can get away with a clear race day.

We’ll get in early and inspect the track as normal tomorrow morning. We’ll get the stewards in as well, just in case that heavy rain is around and the track is unsafe.

We’ll be in close contact with the Bureau just to get a clearer picture of how the rest of the day may unfold, because if we do get heavy rain in the morning and it does clear off, I’d be confident that we can race during the day. But if it does stay around, it may be an issue for the running of the races.

The track presents in great condition. It recovered well from Makybe Diva Stakes Day and, with the rail pushed out, there’s nice, clean ground right across the track. So although it’s very heavily rain-affected, I’d expect it to race well given the conditions we’ve had over the last 24 hours.

Track rating: Good 4 (now Soft 6)

Grass coverage: Good

Irrigation: Nil in the last 24 hours and 35mm in the last seven days at the Thursday track walk.

Rainfall: Nil in the last 24 hours and 2mm in the last seven days at the Thursday track walk.

Rail position and why: +3m 1200m chute, +3m 900m to winning post, True remainder — moving to the best possible ground for the Cup meeting.

Verdict: The track was walking in the Good range on Thursday. Overcast conditions with a chance of showers and rain were forecast, making Saturday’s likely rating difficult to predict. The track has a good cover of grass.

Our track is currently rated a Soft 5 (now Good 4), with the rail back in the True position for this meeting on Epsom Day.

The weather today, we’ve got a lovely day with a top of 29 degrees and nor’east winds.

Tomorrow is 24 degrees, with nor’east winds again.

A couple of showers are predicted to come through on Saturday. We’ll be looking at a top of around 22 degrees, with nor’east winds.