Due to bad weather, the King’s Plate tournament in Woodbine has to be cancelled and postponed to August 23

Due to heavy rain on Saturday 17 August, Woodbine was forced to cancel racing for the King’s Plate after the fifth race. The King’s Plate and four other races will now be run on Friday 23 August.

This date would avoid weekend conflicts with other major races, such as the highly-prized Travers Stakes Day on August 24 at Saratoga Race Course.

Lightning and heavy rain had caused weather-related delays earlier in the day. The horses for race six were in the paddock and were unsaddled shortly before the cancellation was announced.

“Late in the day, there was so much rain in such a short period of time. It created puddles on the racecourse,” Woodbine managing director Michael Copeland told reporters. “There were safety concerns. When there are safety concerns, safety is always considered the number one priority in decision making. So we consulted with our veterinarians and our jockeys and came to the conclusion that it was not safe to continue racing.”

“And then the next step was to say, OK, this is a big day for racing in Canada. How do we make sure the 165th (King’s Plate) still goes ahead? So we made the decision to run it on Friday. We’re going to broadcast the four stakes races and the King’s Plate and move them to Friday. So Friday is going to be a spectacular program now. We were hoping it would be today, but Mother Nature had other plans.”

Copeland said the racetrack would be in touch with those who had purchased tickets for the King’s Plate and inform them of Saturday’s cancellation. He said it was too early to know if the King’s Plate could be broadcast nationally on Friday as planned for Saturday. He said the racetrack would work to get it distributed through as many channels as possible.

None of the day’s five stakes races had ever been run before, with the crowning event being the $1 million Canadian King’s Plate, the first leg of the Canadian Triple Crown and the oldest continuously run stakes race in North America.

Copeland expressed hope that the six-day delay of the King’s Plate will not negatively impact the second race of the series, the Prince of Wales Stakes over 1 3/16 miles on dirt on Sept. 10, because horses will have less recovery time between races. The Breeders’ Stakes over 1 1/2 miles on turf at Woodbine on Sept. 29 concludes the Canadian Triple Crown.