Saratoga cancels final seven races on Thursday card

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – The final seven races of Thursday’s 11-race card at Saratoga were canceled after unexpected heavy rains rendered the main track unusable.

“On a day when there was zero forecast for rain, we were caught by a weather situation where we don’t feel it is safe for our equine athletes or our human athletes to continue,” Martin Panza, NYRA’s senior vice president of racing operations said. “It appears there is more rain coming, and it is not something we feel we could have fixed quickly enough.”

This is the second card in four days that has been impacted by weather. Last Saturday, the entire card was scrapped due to extreme heat.

Thursday’s rains came during the running of the fourth race, which was run on turf. The main track was left open, and the rain made the track loose and sloppy. At first, NYRA announced that the remaining turf races would be transferred to the main track.

Horses were in the paddock for fifth race and the tractors went around several times but could not sufficiently fix the track, so the decision was made to cancel the remainder of the program.