Racing comeback for $1.1million earner abandoned

Efforts to get Soho Tribeca (American Ideal) back to the races have been short-lived with harness racing trainer Mick Stanley and owner Rob Watson opting to send the former top pacer back to stud.

News broke in June that the multiple Group 1 winner was out of retirement and in work, but after two trials the million-dollar earner is back at Northern Rivers Equine ahead of the upcoming breeding season.

Stanley told SEN Track on Wednesday that he and Watson had decided to take a “cautious approach” and abandon the racing preparation.

“We could have raced on. He was still sound and that sort of thing, but it probably just got to the pointy end where we got more worried about breaking him down for the future than actually racing…,” Stanley said.

“Because he still had screws in it (leg), we needed to be 110 per cent confident that we could come back at Inter Dominion level. And although he had two really good trials, probably as an older horse with his injuries and that, with the stud season fast approaching, that probably weighed on Rob and my mind a little bit.

“We took the cautious approach, stopped and made sure that on the chance that he did reinjure when he got back to that really elite, hard racing, that we didn’t ruin what will be a fantastic stud career as well.”

Soho Tribeca last raced competitively in the 2019 Italian Cup, with that appearance coming close to a year after his prior start in the Sunshine Sprint at Albion Park. It was in that Group 2 feature that he fractured a leg.

The horse was a one-time Inter Dominion favourite and star pacer that raced right around the country through 2015-2019. His biggest victories came while trained in Western Australia by Bryan Cousins and Kim Prentice, with the Gold Nugget, WA Pacing Cup and Vicbred Super Series 4YO Entires and Geldings Final his three triumphs at Group 1 level.

In all, Soho Tribeca won 21 of 59 race starts for more than $1.1million in prizemoney.

by Tim O’Connor, for HRV