Hot conditions leading in and the forecast for wild weather on race day has confronted track manager Jason Kerr as he prepares the track for the Manfred Stakes meeting at Caulfield.
Saturday’s nine-race card features the Group Three Manfred Stakes (1200m) for three-year-olds with the field including Caulfield Guineas winner Super Seth, while the Group Three Chairman’s Stakes (1000m) is one of the lead-ups to the Group One Blue Diamond.
The track was rated in the good range on Friday, with a forecast for Saturday of between 10mm and 30mm of rain and a drop in temperature from the early 40s to around 29 degrees.
“The track is ready to go as far as preparation goes,” Kerr said on Friday afternoon.
“We watered today and have been watering all week with the warm weather.
“We put on 10 mils today and it will be spot-on in the morning and then we’ll just see how the day plays out.
“They’re saying it’s going to be a reasonably stormy day so I think we’re going to get some rain. How much, depending on which forecast you look at, but I think we’re going to get somewhere between 10 and 25 (mm).”
Kerr said with isolated storm activity there was also a chance it would miss Caulfield.
“It’s happened in the past they’ve forecast a lot and we’ve ended up with very little so we played it safe today and put plenty of water on it, so even if we miss it all tomorrow we will have plenty of give in it,” he said.
Kerr said the heaviest activity had been predicted for between 11am and 3pm.
The first race is at 12.35pm with the final race at 5.30pm.
Kerr said the worst scenario was rain during a race meeting.
“But the track’s in fantastic condition. It’s got a really dense cover of grass on it,” he said.
“The rail is out at 10 metres so it is clean ground right across.
“Although it’s probably going to get into the soft range if the forecast is right, it’s going to be a soft track but with a good base on it.”
