Moonee Valley abandoned after five races
Incessant rain has caused the Moonee Valley meeting to be abandoned over safety concerns after just five races were run on the nine-race program.
Jockeys and stewards inspected the track after the fifth race, which was won by Jittery Jack, and they agreed to call off the meeting on safety grounds.
Racing Victoria chief steward Robert Cram said they had no choice but to abandon the program due to excessive surface water.
Cram inspected the course with a group of jockeys including Damien Oliver, Craig Williams and Dwayne Dunn.
“We’ve had a lot of rain. We inspected the track with senior riders and unfortunately we are all in agreeance that it’s not safe to continue on,” Cram said.
Cram said the soil was waterlogged and there was a lot of surface water on sections of the track.
“There’s three sections of the track which have got water running across the track and then there’s other parts of the track so waterlogged horses won’t get a good footing,” he said.
“Unfortunately, we can’t progress. If the rain had backed off and stopped we might have been a good chance but it’s rained all day and it’s been deteriorating all day.”
The meeting’s two feature races, the Listed Mitchell McKenzie Stakes (1200m) and the Listed Carlyon Stakes (1000m), were not run.
The Mitchell McKenzie had been decimated by scratchings and there were only four starters left in it.
Racing Victoria will consult the Moonee Valley Racing Club (MVRC) this week regarding the two abandoned black-type races to determine whether they can be rescheduled to a future meeting at The Valley.
Moonee Valley already has a feature sprint over 1000m on its next race day on September 5 which is the McEwen Stakes.