Delaware Park Postpones Del Cap, Other Races To Next Saturday
Delaware Park’s biggest remaining afternoon of the 2026 season will have to wait another week.
Track officials announced Friday that Saturday’s 10-race program, topped by the Grade 3 Delaware Handicap, has been postponed because of the Nor’easter threatening the Mid-Atlantic and much of the East Coast this weekend. The entire card will instead be run Saturday, Oct. 3.
The decision preserves a program featuring four stakes races, led by the $500,000 Delaware Handicap, one of the signature events on Delaware Park’s annual calendar.
This year’s 89th running of the Delaware Handicap drew a field of 11 fillies and mares, including defending champion Regaled. The 5-year-old mare will be bidding to join a select group of seven horses who have won the race twice. Regaled captured the 2025 edition by 6 1/4 lengths before going on to finish third in the Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Distaff at Del Mar.
The Delaware Handicap is also part of the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Dozen Bonus Series for the $2 million Longines Breeders’ Cup Distaff, scheduled for Oct. 31 at Keeneland. The first three finishers earn credits toward their Breeders’ Cup entry fees, worth $30,000, $15,000 and $7,500, respectively.
Also included on the postponed program is the $200,000 Battery Park Stakes for older horses, along with a pair of $150,000 stakes for 2-year-olds. All 10 races originally scheduled for Sept. 26 will be shifted intact to Oct. 3 rather than being redistributed over subsequent programs.
The Battery Park was scheduled to feature Barbadian Runner, the multiple stakes-winning gelding trained by Henry Walters. Barbadian Runner enters following a fifth-place finish in the Grade 2 Charles Town Classic, where Walters said the gelding endured a troubled trip that included losing a shoe.
Weather, rather than track conditions alone, forced Delaware Park’s hand.
The National Weather Service has been tracking a Nor’easter expected to produce significant impacts along portions of the Eastern Seaboard, including strong winds, heavy rain, high surf and coastal flooding through the weekend. Advisories and warnings have been issued across parts of the Mid-Atlantic as the storm strengthens and works its way northward.
With a high-profile stakes program and several significant races at stake, postponing the entire card gives Delaware Park the opportunity to keep the afternoon together rather than risk running the races under deteriorating conditions or losing portions of the program altogether.
The Delaware Handicap card is now scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 3.
