Cowra Cup meeting shifted to Orange after historic floods cause significant damage at Cowra Jockey Club

The club's main showcase race meeting, the Cowra Cup will be run at Towac Park on Sunday after the club and Racing NSW stewards deemed the Cowra track unsuitable for racing.

It's the first time the Cowra Cup hasn't been staged in Cowra.

It wasn't a difficult call to make, however, Cowra Jockey Club president Peter Ford describing the damage sustained out of the November 15 flood event as the most significant the club's Grenfell Road base has suffered.

"We were hit twice," Ford said, looking back at last year's flooding.

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"Just after Melbourne Cup, there was a metre-and-a-half through the bar and over the track surface, but it receded well and the damage was minimal.

"But the 15^th (of November) was a big flood. The height was around 2.4m (above the track) and it took a lot longer to recede."

Nominations for Sunday's cup meeting were released on Tuesday.

Last year's champion, the Michael Mulholland-trained Athena's Lad, won't be back to defend its crown but the Dubbo trainer is still a chance to make it back-to-back feature wins.

Mulholland nominated last-start Gilgandra Cup winner Cheptegei and stablemate Sea Of Flames for Sunday's main event.

Knife's Edge, the winner of the recent Coonabarabran Cup from the Garry Lunn stables, has also been nominated.

Scone-based trainer Brett Cavanough has one of the early favourites with Eiger set to make the trip west, while Nieces And Nephews from the Joseph and Jones stables heads to Orange in form having won two of his last three races, and placing second in the other.

While in the day's other feature race, the Cowra Japan Cup, Darren Hyde's stable star Westlink will be looking to make it a double after taking out last year's sprint. Fellow Dubbo trainer Dar Lunn's Classy Rebel looks one of the stronger runners in the field for Sunday there, too.

A statement released by the Cowra club earlier this week thanked Racing Orange for taking on Sunday's Cowra Cup meeting.

It's expected a large contingent from Cowra will make the bus trip to Towac Park for the meeting.

"We would like to thank all those who have assisted in the flood recovery, which is still ongoing, particularly representatives from Racing NSW," the statement read.

The recovering club is facing a long road to recovery.

Ford said 50m either side of the winning post sustained significant damage. The turf was lifted and needed to be resewn, while most of the turf that remained was later revealed to have died once the sand was removed from the surface.

He expects it to take months before the club is back up and running race meetings again, with a post on the club's Facebook page revealing its meeting in March is now the date being looked at for a relaunch.

"None of it is an easy fix," Ford said.

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