Flatter: Sometimes racing reacts well to rain, and sometimes ...

Williamsburg, Va.

At the end of a long drive from Kentucky to Virginia came one of those phone alerts to provide a nerve-racking yelp before a violent storm. It screamed like an amber alert in red letters.

Tornado warning.

I should take these things more seriously, but like so many others, it came, it went, and it was just very, very wet.

DeRosa: Fair odds for Arlington Million.

No, we should not screw around with tornado warnings, and we should not be as cavalier about incoming hurricanes and tropical storms and such. There was a deadly tornado one state away, and it was spawned by Debby, which itself killed at least six people.

Pardon my inconvenience with unloading luggage in a downpour outside my hotel. Yeah, woe is me, right? But it says here Colonial Downs, a half-hour back up the road, really got it right reacting to the storm and postponing the Grade 1 Arlington Million from Saturday to Sunday. And it also says here the New York Racing Association might pick up a few pointers about how to react to the ever-capricious weather at Saratoga.

Yes, they could have been shown up if the storm had been a dud, but Dan Cuic and Frank Hopf and their team at Colonial were not. When they heard those black-and-red square flags could be flying in the mid-Atlantic, they pounced early this week. By quickly and decisively moving a couple garden-variety cards from Thursday and Friday to Monday and Tuesday, it was clear they were leaving themselves a day of wiggle room to move the Million to from Saturday to Sunday. Less than a day later, that was precisely what they did.

When Colonial declared Wednesday that the Million card would be pushed back 24 hours, it was common sense applied with a deft touch. Yes, Churchill Downs Inc., which owns the joint, may take that as a compliment. Horsemen and racing fans were inconvenienced by the storm but not by the reaction to it. And handicappers had to love the extra day to ponder what would be more predictable conditions this weekend.

This is where one might expect the pile-on to begin for Saratoga. Sorry to disappoint, but that is not the goal here, especially since upstate New York got unluckily wet the past couple weekends. There is a certain amount of asking what else were they supposed to do when the turf was soaking wet for consecutive Saturdays of scheduled Grade 1 stakes.

Therein lies the bigger challenge at Saratoga. Unlike Colonial, the races are more stacked on a week-to-week and even a day-to-day basis. Maybe not in field size anymore but certainly with purses.

The two cards Colonial postponed to Monday and Tuesday included only one stakes with added money. Total purses are about $1 million. At Saratoga, the card that will not be run Friday had two stakes yet to be rescheduled and a total value of $1 million just on its own.

NYRA just does not have as much room for error. Not when it races five days a week every week contrasted to Colonial’s three. And not when so many thousands of people are flocking to the Spa every day. And not when it is hosting Grade 1 cards at least once and sometimes twice every weekend.

This is not to give NYRA a free pass on these weather episodes. In essence it followed Colonial’s lead, but it waited an extra day to make similar moves. Whether it should have done so sooner has been the stuff of arguments on social media, which are not necessarily built on concrete foundations.

Saratoga does, however, vex players with some of its game-time decisions. There was another case of making a middle-of-the-card change Thursday afternoon to move the remaining turf races to the main track. NYRA has turned this read-and-react approach to the weather into an exercise in pre-snap audibles on third and long, and they ain’t exactly yelling “Omaha.” No wonder horseplayers understandably are growing gun-shy in playing Saratoga on potentially wet days.

It was exactly one year ago this very day when NYRA boss David O’Rourke showed up on “Talking Horses” to tell Andy Serling “we dropped the ball” three days after bettors were told everything would be moved off the turf just as horses were about to load for the first leg of a Pick 5.

That should not be forgotten, nor should the 14 racehorses who died during last summer’s meet at Saratoga. They are valid reasons for the hackneyed phrase abundance of caution. Still, using that and the ever-changing weather as crutches for waiting rather than deciding on moving races can be dubious. It is convenient to blame Mother Nature when Pick 5 players are getting ripped off, but it is curious when the track bosses are always at the scene of the crime.

Hindsight aside, it is impossible to make everyone happy even with the best of decisions on race day. Just ask Coolmore trainer Aidan O’Brien. His fuming could be felt an ocean away when he called morning-line favorite Diego Velázquez home after the Saratoga Derby (G1) was postponed last weekend with 24 minutes’ notice before the scheduled first post.

When there is sufficient notice, horseplayers justifiably ask why the late Pick 5 cannot be remapped. No doubt archaic technology will be blamed, but one would think if the Fourstardave (G1) and Saratoga Derby can be pushed to the back of Sunday’s card with nearly a three-day heads-up, they still could be included in multi-race exotics.

“To allow for increased flexibility, those races will fall outside of all horizontal wagers,” a NYRA statement said. I am still working on how excluding them qualifies as increased flexibility.

Then again, racing has developed an alarming amount of spokes-speak lately. When the water tower got drained after a thunderstorm at Ellis Park, that was branded an “unscheduled grandstand maintenance issue.” Thursday night at Evangeline Downs, the head-on camera was broken, so races were canceled because of “unforeseen circumstances.” Why not just say the water supply was low and the camera crapped out?

Let the double talk cascade over us all like a summer storm. Speaking of that, Virginia’s governor is going to be at Colonial on Sunday for the announcement of an expanded 2025 racing calendar. That is barring unforeseen circumstances, an unscheduled grandstand maintenance issue or a lack of increased flexibility.

Is it still raining?

Ron Flatter’s column appears Friday mornings at Horse Racing Nation. Comments below are welcomed, encouraged and may be used in the feedback segment of the Ron Flatter Racing Pod, which also is posted every Friday.