Too bad all the Breeders' Cup turf races couldn't have been run this morning. 

The course is in good shape right now, and after a few nice drying days and warm afternoons I'd rate the turf "good" after walking out on it with Churchill Downs track superintendent Jamie Richardson following grass training just before 10:00 this morning. 

Unfortunately, regarding the turf, the Breeders' Cup remains scheduled for Friday and Saturday. A few raindrops already have started to fall here in Louisville and many, many more are on the way. I know some people -- like trainer John Gosden -- were happy to see weather radar on their phones showing the heavy precipitation churning north of Churchill this morning but alas, this is only the early stage of what's forecast to be a major rain event.

We in the public-selecting business should know better than most how fraught weather forecasting can be, and even this morning, meteorologists still were of course unsure exactly how much rain would fall and exactly where the heaviest of it will hit. That there will be quite a bit of rain seems certain, but whether there's an inch or as much as four inches at Churchill isn't at all clear. What we do know as of Wednesday morning there is a better than 50-50 chance the turf could take a couple inches of rain. 

It's good that the course has dried before this latest round of rain, and Richardson said even after the heaviest rainfall he has "never seen this course get really soft." The course drains quickly and even when very wet, Richardson said, is more of a yielding surface than a boggy one over which horse hooves sink deep into the going. 

Do keep in mind that the portable inner rail set up about 20 feet away from the course's inside hedge is coming down for the Breeders' Cup turf races Friday. Those inner lanes have not been used at all since June, Richardson said. While that is fresh ground down along the hedge, all the lanes inside the portable rail were softer than the part of the course outside the temporary rail - considerably softer, in fact. And the closer one gets to the hedge, the softer the ground gets. It remains to be seen how more rain affects that situation but it definitely worth noting.