Overnight rain has seen the Caulfield track rated a Soft 5 for the ten race program for the 2018 Caulfield Cup Race Day.
Kings Will Dream, above, is the favourite for the 2018 Caulfield Cup at Caulfield. Photo by Ultimate Racing Photos.
Caulfield track manager Jason Kerr awoke to the sound of rain this morning and following his inspection of the track put up a Soft 5 rating after the track received 6mm of rain overnight while the rail out 6m for the entire course.
The Showers are expected to clear late in the morning and the sun is expected to shine through for most of the day.
“I think the track will improve quickly once the rain does stop. The water will get through the profile and will firm up reasonably quickly,” Kerr told RSN Racing Pulse this morning.
“It is not going to be one of those tracks that is going to get serious divotting taking place during the race. They will get the toe into it. We have called it a Soft 5 and we will see how it goes from there.”
“They were forecasting passing showers this morning and we were anticipating 1 -2 mm, but we have had 6mm of rain up until now and we might get another millimetre or two before it clears at eleven.”
“It has taken some effect on the track and we have downgraded it to a soft five at 9.40am and hopefully that is it.”
“The last couple of Caulfield Cups have been on dry tracks and I think that the inside holds up better on dry tracks than it does on rain affected going so I think we are anticipating with the rain that we have had on it that the inside is likely to chop out a bit more than previous years.”
“It doesn’t always mean that they get off it though. I have been caught in the past. Especially on that Wednesday, we have had those two meetings in the true, we leave the rail in the rail, you think it can’t possibly be as good but it seems to hold up for the day.”
“So logic would tell me that the inside may chop out a bit half way through the day with the rain and the traffic on it so we will wait and see how it plays.”
The overnight rain hasn’t affected the betting for the Group 1 $5m Stella Artois Caulfield Cup (2400m) with the Darren Weir trained Kings Will Dream still the $5 favourite with Ladbrokes.com.au ahead of Chris Waller’s mare Youngstar at $6.
Both Kings Will Dream and Youngstar have won on soft rated tracks while $7 third fancy, the Aidan O’Brien trained The Cliffsofmoher, is also a winner on rain affected ground.
The post Rain affected track for 2018 Caulfield Cup appeared first on HorseRacing.com.au.
