Due to heavy rainfall on Saturday, the scheduled pari-mutuel races were cancelled for the weekend.  While rainstorms in August are not unheard of in Oneida County, they certainly aren’t common.  In this case, the timing and the accumulation simply meant that the ground was not suitable for racing, even on Sunday.

 Director of Racing Todd Thomas made the determination early on Saturday that it was not going to be possible to get the track in shape for races on Saturday even if the rain were to stop, which it didn’t until just before scheduled post time.  The question was closer on Sunday, but after several owners were invited by Thomas and other race officials to examine the track, it was mutually agreed that the top surface was too wet still, and too hard underneath to allow horses to race safely.  

“If the sun had come out earlier, we might have been able to dry things out, but it stayed cloudy and muggy all morning,” said Diane Skidmore.  

The plan for Sunday had been to run the trials that had been canceled on Saturday after the scheduled Sunday races, but now two days of racing will have to be compressed into next weekend’s event.

Because the horses can’t race both a qualifying and final race the same afternoon, the racing board has made the decision to run two futurities and two derbies on Sunday, with added purse money, next weekend.  $10K dollars will be added to the futurities and $7,500 to the derbies.  All of the horses that were scheduled for the futurities and derbies last week will be eligible to race in next week’s races.  Stick races will occur between races on both days.

Drawings for the two futurity races will occur on Tuesday, and on Wednesday for the derbies.