It's not a good sign when you drive into a fairgrounds and one of the first things you see is the starting gate still attached to its trailer hitch.

And there it stayed the rest of Saturday, as opening day of the 2015 Pennsylvania County Fair harness racing season, Sire Stakes action for two-year-olds, was rained out at the Erie County Fairgrounds.

Rain in northwestern Pennsylvania Friday night continued into Saturday morning, and despite the cessation of rainfall and partly cloudy skies at the scheduled noon post time, the moisture had sunk through and in so deeply that no amount of work on the track could make the track safe for competition, for both human and horse, and the action for babies was cancelled.

With a mixed forecast overnight, the program for tomorrow, stakes action for three-year-olds, is tentatively scheduled again for noon. (But if a horseman can't go to bed and at least have some hopes for a sunny and safe tomorrow, chances are the person's in the wrong business anyway.)

(Pennsylvania Fair Harness Horsemen's Association)