Heavy rain puts dampener on Vic meetings

With Victoria bracing for heavy rain, racing authorities have made an early call on the country race meeting at Benalla.

Situated in the north-east of Victoria where the heaviest rainfall is expected, Benalla’s meeting on Saturday has been rescheduled to the following Saturday.

Racing Victoria racing operations manager Paul Bloodworth said with between 150 and 200mm forecast there was no way the club could race.

“Hopefully it’s only this weekend we get the rain and the track gets the opportunity to dry out in time for next Saturday,” Bloodworth told RSN927.

Bloodworth is hopeful Friday night’s Moonee Valley meeting and Sandown on Saturday will go ahead.

He said between 20 and 60mm was forecast on both days.

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If the rainfall is at the lower end of the scale, Bloodworth expects the meetings to go ahead.

But if the rain is at the higher end, creating surface water, then the meetings would be in jeopardy.

“It will be the timing of the rain,” Bloodworth said.

“If they can get a two or three-hour break where it doesn’t rain they should be OK.”

Bloodworth said there were no transfer opportunities to other city venues with Caulfield and Flemington coming out of renovations while Moonee Valley has another meeting programmed for the following Friday.

“We’ll press on and hope for a little bit of luck and if we were to lose either meeting we can look at opportunities to reschedule some races at meetings next weekend,” Bloodworth said.