Heat wave cancels Sacramento weekend racing
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A forecast of excessive heat this weekend has led to the cancellation of racing from Friday through Sunday at the Cal-Expo state fair in Sacramento, Calif., a fair official said on Tuesday.
High temperatures are expected to range from 103 degrees Fahrenheit on Friday to 106 on Sunday.
“We’re doing this as an abundance of caution for our athletes and our horses,” a Cal-Expo spokeswoman said.
The decision to cancel races this weekend was made on the advice of a veterinarian representing the California Horse Racing Board, the spokeswoman said.
Under the racing board’s inclement weather policy, excessive temperatures can lead to the cancellation of racing. Los Alamitos cancelled part of a July program in 2018 when jockeys told track officials that excessive heat was affecting horses. The racing board did not have an official inclement weather policy in place at the time.
Entries were taken last Sunday for Friday’s program at Cal-Expo, but the card received minimal support, attracting 35 horses in seven races.
With the cancellation, the fair will have a revised scheduled of racing three days a week from July 21-23 and July 28-30. First post time, which was scheduled for 3:45 p.m. Pacific, will now be 1:45 p.m. to allow for the programming of additional races.
Cal-Expo is the second of five stops on the Northern California fair circuit. The Alameda County Fair in Pleasanton completed a four-week meeting last Sunday.
The cancellation of racing this weekend has delayed the comeback of jockey Irving Orozco, who has not ridden since late April after suffering injuries when he was unseated at Golden Gate Fields.
Orozco was booked to ride four of the seven races at Sacramento on Friday’s abandoned program. He recently resumed working horses after recovering from fractured ribs and a punctured lung.
Orozco, who has won 844 races in a career that began in 2011, ranked seventh in the standings at Golden Gate Fields with 31 wins when he was sidelined.
“I started working horses last weekend,” he said on Tuesday. “So far, I feel really good.”
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