Mitch Beer commends Albury Racing Club for efforts to save Gold Cup meeting

The meeting was in jeopardy after 22mm of rain fell on the track early on Gold cup morning.

Of major concern was an area at the 800 metres mark with water pooled across the track.

The club summoned a helicopter from the nearby Albury airport to try and dry the area before stewards ruled the track unsafe for racing.

"It's nothing short of heartbreaking for the club," Beer said.

"It's easy for us (trainers) to go to the calendar on Monday and nominate for a stack of other races.

"But there is no-one else you can feel sorry for more than the club

"This is their one day of the year and two hours of rain has come at the wrong time.

"The effort the club went to, to get a helicopter in and do every single thing possible to try to get the meeting to go ahead is a full credit to them."

Beer said the club made the right decision with jockey safety paramount.

"Whether it's a cup day or a non-TAB meeting - if its not safe, its not safe and jockey safety is paramount," he said.

"That's just the luck of the draw and certainly nobody's at fault and we were were in the hands of the gods.

"I came across at seven o'clock this morning and had a look and I thought was OK.

"But by 8.30am I sent a message out to a lot of my owners with my concerns that the meeting wouldn't go ahead.

"Hopefully the club can reschedule and the meeting is not totally abandoned."

Racing NSW will attempt to reschedule the meeting with Beer applauding the move.

"The immediate thought is now, how can we get this meeting on as soon as possible and hopefully it can be supported as good as it was going to be today," he said.

"There is obviously a lot of stake - ideally you would just like to come back tomorrow and do it all again.

"But there is a lot of planning to coincide with other meetings. If we could hold this in a seven day period it would be ideal.

"But there is a lot of logistics involved and you have to re-open the nominations and the powers that be know what they are doing and no what to do with big meetings."

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