Heavy overnight rain has forced the abandonment of today’s feature jumps meeting at Sandown.

Trainer Peter Moody was to saddle up Australian Hurdle favourite Macedonian before Sandown was abandoned. Photo by Taron Clarke.

Racing Victoria chairman of stewards Terry Bailey described the Sandown Lakeside track as ‘waterlogged’ and officially called off the meeting at 6.27am this morning.

“There had been 56 ml up until 5am and it hasn’t stopped raining in the hour and a half after that,” Bailey said.

“The forecast was for continual rain. If it had of let up we might have had a shot at it.”

It was waterlogged. A Heavy 12. I hadn’t seen it that waterlogged in my time.”

Bailey said that there was plenty of surface water when the stewards inspected the track this morning and there was no way the meeting could have gone ahead.

Today’s meeting was to see the running of the $100,000 The Australian Steeplechase (3900m) and the $100,000 The Australian Hurdle (3400m).

Racing Victoria Operations Manage Paul Bloodworth and the Melbourne Racing Club are working on a plan to have the two feature jumps races transferred to another date.

Country Victoria has also lost the Kilmore meeting due to the heavy overnight rain and the Lismore meeting in northern New South Wales has been postponed with the track deemed unsafe for racing due to the recent wet weather.

The Queensland Oaks meeting at Eagle Farm will be run on a slow 7 with Brisbane Racing Club officials hoping that the forecast showers stay away.

The Rosehill track has been rated a slow 6 this morning with no rain falling in the last twenty-four hours but the Bureau Of Meteorology has forecast rain to develop during the afternoon.