The reverberations of a fatal accident were felt all the way to Canberra, and the Canberra Cup Day paused as a result.

Several horses racing in the Canberra Guineas and Cup were caught up in the ensuing traffic jam, with the Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott-trained Yaletown pulling up lame after the extra long journey.

That forced Yaletown to be scratched from the Cup, while both the Canberra Guineas and the $200,000 feature race were delayed.

It also saw McEvoy give up his ride in the last race because he had to catch a 7.10pm plane back to catch back Sydney so he could work on Tuesday.

He revealed his Canberra Guineas winner Avebury, which had also been caught up in traffic, had handled the journey well before going on to win the listed 1400-metre race.

"She seemed fine. Obviously a few of them got held up with the unfortunate circumstances around that crash. It's been a terrible afternoon on the roads," McEvoy said.

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Canberra Racing chief executive Darren Pearce said they delayed the races to ensure all the horses were given the best possible chance to run - having made the effort to get to the capital for the carnival in the first place.

He said there was a rule of thumb that horses needed at least 90 minutes to prepare for their race after travel.

"There was a horrible fatal accident on the Hume Highway and the horse floats coming from Sydney weren't too far behind it and got caught in the traffic backlog," Pearce said.

"Unfortunately we had to wait for those horses in the floats to get here.

"There's a rule of thumb in racing that says you have to get your horses here an hour and a half before a race.

"That allows the vets to look at the horses and any swabs to be taken, and for the horse just to settle off the float - have a drink and a walk.

"We had to push everything back.

"Unfortunately one horse in the Canberra Cup came off lame - it had been in the float for an extended period of time. Not seriously hurt, just grade-two lame."

McEvoy revealed the Guineas was the first time he'd ever ridden Avebury - including in trackwork.

He'd gotten to know her watching videos of her runs and talking to trainer John O'Shea.

"Yeah it is, I haven't even ridden her in trackwork, just going off videos and what John told me," McEvoy said.

"John said just forget about last time. She's in better order than that and he was right there today. She was able to pick up and get a good finish."

McEvoy expected O'Shea to target a nice 1400m race for three-year-old fillies in the coming weeks.

He wasn't overly pleased with the position they'd found themselves in - with no cover in the run.

Instead, Avebury had to do plenty of work on her own.

"She's been a nice filly, on the improve all the time," McEvoy said.

"Sat a little bit close than what we first intended.

"Did a good job because we didn't have any cover so we had to do it facing the breeze all the way.

"She was a dominant winner so she was well placed by John and the team."

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