Sunday’s live racing program at Fair Grounds has been canceled due to unsafe
track conditions. The state and track stewards made the final decision about
10:30 a.m. (CST)
“Despite a Herculean effort by our track maintenance crew, we were not able
to get the racing surface to where it needs to be,” Fair Grounds Vice President
and General Manager Eric Halstrom said. “It’s still a little heavy in spots and
the recommendation was for more time to get the track ready. We just ran out of
time. Our track crew will spend the afternoon and evening doing what they can to
prepare our surface for racing on Monday.”
Heavy thunderstorms forced the cancellation of Saturday’s last four races on
the Louisiana Champions Day program, as well as the closing of the track for
training hours on Sunday. Track superintendent Ian Gamble and his crew were out
early Sunday morning working to get the track ready for the day’s races.
“We’ve had so much rain it’s unbelievable,” Gamble said. “We have a rain
gauge right there (next to the track maintenance barn) that goes up to six
inches and it was up over the top by last night so I don’t even know officially
how much we’ve had.”
The Times-Picayune reported six inches of rain in the area from 2 p.m.
to 8:45 p.m. Even after the worst of the storms passed through late Saturday,
steady light rain continued to fall all night. The weather meant another
sleepless night for Gamble, who was up monitoring the situation and planning for
this morning.
“The rest of my guys came in at 5 a.m. to start reclaiming stuff that had
washed off the main track,” Gamble explained earlier Sunday morning, prior to
the official decision coming down to cancel. “In some spots there was as much as
a foot of material that had gathered between the two tracks. The harrows are
heading out to finish up what we’ve been doing the last few hours, which is
leveling it out. Then I’m going to float it, then I’m going to harrow it, and
then I’m going to float it. I’ve got riders coming in between 8:30 and 9 a.m. to
get on some ponies and go around to make sure it’s even for them. I won’t let
anyone else out there until we all know it’s OK.”
Live racing is scheduled to resume Monday with a nine-race program beginning
at 1 p.m. The grandstand and all nine Fair Grounds Off-Track Betting locations
are open Sunday for simulcasting from 15 tracks around the country plus
nighttime racing from Australia (9 p.m. CST).
Due to the cancellations, Fair Grounds will add races to its Friday and
Saturday programs and set first post a half-hour earlier each day, 12:30 for
Friday and noon on Saturday.