It is touch and go whether superstar pacer Ride High will make it back to the races.
While trainers Clayton Tonkin and Emma Stewart were confident of a successful comeback a month ago, the challenges of mixing stud duties with serious training are proving difficult.
Tonkin said the next six weeks will prove crunch time.
āItās a juggling act and heās about a month behind where we hoped we would be,ā Tonkin said.
āWe canāt keep going along like this, we need to find out if heās going to make it back or not. This next four to six weeks is when we have to find out.ā
Ride High hasnāt raced since suffering a tendon injury in early October, last year.
His history of injuries, combined with the fact heās now half-owned by Alabar Farms Stud, prompted the decision to stand him at stud for the first time this season, which started three weeks ago.
āThere was no guarantee he would make it back (to the races), so we had to decide about stud and we couldnāt risk missing another whole breeding season on the hope he would make a comeback,ā Tonkin said.
āBut itās not easy mixing both, especially with a big horse like him at the crunch stage of his comeback preparation.
āThereās nothing wrong with him, itās just a matter of when we can get that last crucial stage of fast work into him and whether he gets through it.ā
The racing lease agreement on Ride High expires next August, but Tonkin said a decision on his racing career would be made long before then.
āThe big races like the Hunter Cup and Miracle Mile are early next year and thatās why we need to know sooner rather than later,ā he said.
āIf weāre not in a position for him to race in six weeks or so, then I think heāll be retired to stud.ā
The rising seven-year-old has been restricted to just 18 starts because of injury for 16 wins and $289,427 in prizemoney.
Alabar Farmsā Alan Galloway, one of Australiaās most internationally-renowned and successful operators, insists Ride High is up with the best pacers heās seen in the world on sheer talent.
āIāve been all around the world and seen the best of the best, most of them in the flesh, and this horse is next level. Heās the best Iāve seen,ā he said.
āThe way he gets over the ground so easily and the times he runs without being asked ā¦ heās just amazing.ā
By Adam Hamilton courtesy of News Corp Australia