DUBBO Turf Club will be hoping it's a case of third time lucky, with their re-scheduled Derby Day meeting being postponed yesterday and transferred to Monday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
An additional 10mm of rain fell on the already soaked course on Thursday night, leaving stewards no choice but to declare the track unsuitable for racing.
It was a shame for the club, who lost their races on Derby Day before five small fields went around on Melbourne Cup day.
But thankfully, Racing NSW again came to the party to re-schedule and with a fine weekend forecast it should be all systems go for Monday, with the fields remaining the same as they would have been yesterday.
"They can't seem to take a trick at the moment," Central West chief steward Todd Smith said.
"We told the club to mow their track on Thursday, and with the sun and wind around on Thursday afternoon at 5.45pm you could have raced on it.
"Then another dumping of rain came and it was the last thing that was needed. If it had stayed dry we could have raced easily and it might have been a soft 6 or 7.
"But that rain just tipped things over the edge again and given it fell late and there was no chance for it to dry, we couldn't go ahead.
"Thankfully there is no rain forecast for Dubbo over the weekend, and if that's the case we should be right to go."
With the decision to call the meeting off made shortly before 7am a plan was quickly put into place, and by 10am it had been decided the meeting would go ahead on Monday with the same fields as Friday.
Smith said the backlog of horses needing to race helped facilitate the decision.
"Racing NSW called and asked what the weather looked like for the weekend, and with no rain forecast they elected to race on Monday," he said.
"With Dubbo not racing last weekend and Orange being called off on Tuesday these horses need to run. There's starting to be a backlog of horses that have missed races."
The first race on Monday has been scheduled for 1.45pm, with the last to be run at 5.30pm.