Cardiac arrhythmia setback

Trainer Matthew Craven is up north on an important Queensland campaign, but reported some positive news with Shadow Sax in relation to the cardiac arrhythmia suffered during Saturday night’s Bendigo harness racing meeting.

The top son of Shadow Play dropped out badly during the running of the Simonds Homes Bendigo Pace, with stewards reporting an issue shortly after the race.

Craven said the horse would be further inspected this week, but believed his heart had returned to a normal beat.

“From what they could know yesterday, he’d flicked back in so that was the main thing,” Craven told thetrots.com.au.

“The vet will come and look at him through the week and we will probably just give him an easy few weeks now.”

Craven said it was hard to know what causes the heart issue.

“I’ve only ever had one do that before and he went on to race and win races,” Craven said.

“You see it happen from time to time, everyone has a different opinion as to why it happens. I know it has been a really wet week at home and if he hasn’t drunk properly, it could be one of the reasons why it happened. I don’t know.”

Shadow Sax was previously trained by Emma Stewart and appeared to have been working up to his first win since joining the Craven yard with a narrow second placing to Max Delight in the TAB Blacks A Fake Free For All on June 26.

The horse has won 23 of 49 career starts, including the 2015 Vicbred Super Series 2YO Colts and Geldings Final and the 2018 SA Pacing Cup.

He now has more than $550,000 in the bank for connections.

By Tim O’Connor for HRV