Frequent clods were ripped from underneath hooves on the Kensington track after light rain on Saturday, but stewards deemed just one downgrade, to a dead five, appropriate after the opening race.

Warwick Farm trainer Joe Pride, who acknowledged he was not the best independent analyst after having three beaten favourites, led the criticism of the track, which was only reopened in October.

But Ramdhani says pictures telecast of Sydney's final Saturday metropolitan meeting of the season gave the impression the track was playing worse than it was.

"Something we may need to educate people on the StrathAyr [surface] is that it's soft on top, but it's designed to be firm under foot, albeit not too firm for the horses," said Ramdhani, who claimed the light, soaking rain on race day was more conducive to a shifty surface, compared with a short burst of torrential rain.

"When you looked at the damage, even though a lot of grass was flying in the air, it wasn't anything worse than a dead surface. It was definitely a dead track, it just didn't look like a dead track."

The Kensington meeting has at least given the course proper a break before the spring carnival; Ramdhani said if the main track was used on Saturday it would have forced the rail out three metres.

It is the same position it will be in for the rescheduled Warwick Stakes meeting next month.

Ramdhani said the Kensington surface would undergo a makeover after the Villiers Stakes meeting in December, allowing it to be used more regularly in winter to ease the load on Sydney's other tracks.

"We've got to thin out the thatch, thin out the grass and that allows moisture to penetrate the profile and in doing that it's certainly going to improve the surface," Ramdhani said.

"Even when we were racing on it early in the piece [last year] you did see a little bit of kick back and that will be a trait of the track. It wasn't kicking back as badly as we saw it [on Saturday], but you'll see flick-offs and you'll probably always see that.

"Once that track gets renovated and we get into future winters, it's certainly an opportunity to use it more regularly in the winter."

Despite predictions, punters did not completely snub the meeting after $1.88 million was pumped into the tote win pool on the NSW TAB for the eight races. It was only slightly inferior to turnover on a Randwick course-proper meeting a fortnight earlier, which had more starters, and more than the Rosehill meeting earlier this month.