As the TAB, ATC and Racing NSW continue to count the cost of abandoning Saturday’s feature meeting at Warwick Farm there’s no doubt it’s been a massive blow.

Estimates say around $8 million in turnover was lost and the autumn carnival has been put on the back foot before it’s even begun.

The Warwick Farm meet was called off the morning of the race with surface water making the track unsafe for racing.

It is the first time a Saturday metropolitan meeting has been lost in Sydney since a Randwick race day in June of 2007.

Making things worse was the fact Racing NSW and the ATC couldn’t find a viable option to transfer the meeting either.

The eight race program was carrying $560,000 in stakes prize money and was a crucial step for plenty of horses starting their programs.

The most notable was Karuta Queen for Neville Layt who now finds herself short of a run with limited option to catch up.

Gai Waterhouse is in a similar boat with one of her Golden Slipper chances Kuchinskaya as well as Charing Cross which is Doncaster Mile bound.

It wasn’t just Warwick Farm that suffered either with Kembla Grange also having to be scrapped.

Races at Grafton were shortened and the mile event was abandoned altogether.

Of course this stems from losses earlier in the week as well with six races canned at Hawkesbury back on Thursday and Friday’s Tamworth meeting called off.

In trying to get horses back on track a couple of alterations have been made.

Firstly, any horse which was nominated for either Warwick Farm or Kembla Grange on Saturday can be nominated late for Hawkesbury this Wednesday.

The Hawkesbury program has also been extended with Rosehill’s Saturday card adding races as well.