Royal Randwick has been hit with a staggering 230mm of rain in the past 24 hours, but Doncaster day has been given the all-clear to proceed.
A bucket load of rain has fallen in Sydney on Saturday morning, with trainers Peter Moody and Michael Freedman posting videos on social media showing how heavy it was.
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In one clip, Freedman is heard saying: “Never seen it this bad.”
Amazingly, the Racing NSW Stewards declared most of the surface was ‘suitable for racing’, except for a section near the 1000m.
At 7:45am, the Stewards confirmed the race meeting would proceed with the track, unsurprisingly, in the Heavy 10 range.
There have been some key scratchings from the $4 million Doncaster Mile with Zougotcha, Golden Mile, Semana, Southport Tycoon and Attractable coming out.
Golden Slipper winner Lady Of Camelot has been withdrawn from the Sires, Zardozi has been scratched from the Derby, while Private Eye and Cylinder have been scratched from the TJ Smith.
By 6.15am Saturday, 231mm of rain had fallen at Randwick.
The weather radar, however, shows the worst of the rain has ended and was moving away from Sydney.
On Friday, officials were optimistic day one of The Championships on Saturday will proceed.
Racing NSW chief steward Steve Railton walked with Randwick course proper on Friday with an ATC track official around 2pm Friday and rated the track a Heavy 8.
At the time, Railton said unless there was a significant downpour overnight, he was reasonably confident the Doncaster-Derby meeting would go ahead as scheduled.
Stewards have arranged for two horses to work on the course proper just after 6am before making a final decision on the suitability of the track.
A high of 26C is tipped for Saturday. The first race is scheduled to jump at 12.25pm, and surface water and visibility will be a key factor for decision makers.
This story originally appeared on Punters.com.au and has been reposted with permission