Bowing to Mother Nature and putting safety first on its list, Del Mar Thoroughbred Club has announced a cancelation of its planned Sunday racing card.

With a rare and sizeable hurricane set to sweep into the Southern California area, the shore track determined it had little choice but to call off the nine-race program it had scheduled to close out the weekend.

“For the safety of everyone involved -- our horses, our riders and all the workers, staff and fans -- we have made the decision to cancel Sunday’s races,” DMTC president and COO Josh Rubinstein said Saturday morning. “Unfortunately, the forecast calls for substantial rain and winds that appear to be headed our way. We are hopeful this will only be a one-day thing for us, but it is a necessary step we feel we have to take.”

This incident will be only the second time in the track’s 84-year history it has lost a day of racing to the elements. In 2019, its Thanksgiving Day card was called off ahead of a projected storm.

Track officials have indicated that no individual make-up day will be scheduled in light of the loss. Instead, the plan is to arrange to work in many of the planned races on different days over the course of coming weeks.

Del Mar has a 31-day schedule this year which started on Friday, July 21 and goes forward to Sunday, September 10.  Racing is conducted on a Thursday through Sunday basis primarily with the addition of an extra card on Labor Day Monday, September 4.

Racing will resume at the track next Thursday with a 2 p.m. first post.