If conditions at Randwick continue to deteriorate then Metropolitan favourite Lamasery could be scratched

The Metropolitan favourite Lamasery is in danger of being scratched from the field tomorrow afternoon should the conditions around Sydney continue to deteriorate.

Trainer David Vandyke says his horse is in great shape however he doesn’t wish to run him if the surface gets too soft.

The Randwick surface is already nearing his cut off point and the next 24 hours will be crucial to the makeup of the Group 1 feature event.

“It does look a bit ugly if you look at the forecast, I’m going to go over and have a look at the track tomorrow with the owner,” he said.

“If it looks like a slow 6 we won’t scratch but if there is a down grade during the day we’ll be out.

“It doesn’t look very promising as there is rain predicted during the day.”

Even if Lamasery gets to the track tomorrow morning that won’t guarantee him as a starter with Vandyke particularly concerned about how the track will cope throughout the earlier part of the program.

The Metropolitan is Race 9 of 9 at Randwick tomorrow meaning it’ll cop a heavy workload throughout the day.

“Once they start racing on the surface if they get rain on it it’s a bit of a mess,” he said.

If they do elect to run the horse though he says punters should have no concerns with him, even going as far as to say he’s improved from his last start win.

“He’s better than he was going into his race last Saturday,” he said.

It’s the track rating that’s going to be the major concern though. Lamasery not having a lot of luck on rain effected tracks in the past.

“He ran second at Mudgee in a benchmark 55, he was even money at Kembla one day in a field of five beaten 3.5 lengths,” Vandyke said.

“He did run a very good run on a heavy (3rd, BM65, Kembla Grange, Dec 10 2010) but it teared the guts out of him.

“He’s been too good for us, back to back group races this prep with potentially more to come, we can’t risk the horse.”