Top young trotter out with serious injury

The racing future of champion juvenile trotter Plymouth Chubb is in doubt after a serious injury was discovered after trackwork earlier this week.

Owner Gary Benson told thetrots.com.au that his horse was currently at the Ballarat Veterinary Practice Equine Clinic following surgery to repair a hind pastern, which was found to be fractured on Tuesday.

Benson said four screws had been inserted into the bone and early reports suggested that the procedure had gone well.

“According to the vet, in these sorts of operations there’s about a 60 per cent chance they get back to racing,” Benson said.

“Whether they are going to fulfil their original potential remains to be seen. He might get back to the track and not win another race, too.

“He is tough, he’s fit and athletic. If you compare him to a human, they are the sorts of ones that come good, they recover well and we can only hope he’s going to do that.”

The injury was discovered during morning trackwork at trainer Peter Manning’s Great Western property and came just days after his Group 1 Vicbred Super Series triumph at Tabcorp Park Melton on New Year’s Eve. That narrow victory was the gelding’s 14^th-straight success and fourth Group 1 win, capping one of the sport’s greatest ever two-year-old seasons.

Traveling Plymouth Chubb to New Zealand – initially for the Northern Trotting Derby on May 27 – had been firmly on the radar before the setback, but those immediate plans have now been shelved.

Benson said vets had the horse’s leg in a plaster cast and sling in the days after the surgery and expected the recovery period to be somewhere between four to six months.

Plymouth Chubb’s Group 1 wins in 2021 included the Home Grown Classic, Redwood Classic, Breeders Crown Final and Vicbred Super Series Final, with his first-season earnings tallying over $220,000.

By Tim O’Connor for HRV