Sparkling Success to make a long-awaited return

The sparkle will be back in trainer John Meade’s eye this Sunday as his champion trotter, Sparkling Success, makes his long-awaited race return in Sunday’s Charlton trotters cup.

But with hope will come apprehension for the trainer of the 2018 Great Southern Star, with Sparkling Success unraced since September 2018, when a suspensory injury curtailed plans to contest the Yonkers International Trot only hours before the team flew out.

Meade told Trots Talk he would have his heart in his mouth on Sparkling Success’s return at 3.20pm on Sunday, conscious the Great Success gelding is vulnerable to reinjury.

“I don’t know if it’s excited, you’ve got your (heart) in your mouth," Meade said. 

It’s been a long road back to Sunday’s race return for Meade, who has persisted through a regular routine that reminded the dairy farmer of milking cows.

“It’s been 18 months. You just do it every day. This horse has never been turned out. Since the day we found he had this slight tear in his suspensory ligament he’s never been turned out.

“He’s been confined to the box and then walking and then trotting and more trotting. On 17th of November we got the all clear from Ballarat Vet Clinic to go the full training. That’s four months ago, so he’s been in full work for four months.

“You add it up and it’s a lot of hours, a lot of shoeing, a lot of feeding. You just go an do it. You try to get him back.”

Sparkling Success won his first trial back at Terang on February 22 and then placed second at Hamilton on February 27 and Terang on March 7, with Meade deciding Sunday's North West Ag Services 2020 Charlton Trotters Cup was time to return to competition despite a lack of race fitness.

“I would have liked a couple of better trials, but as my father, who's been dead and gone a long time, he said there’s no money at the end of a trial,” Meade said.

“We’ve decided to go to races. I’m not confident we can win, there’s a few horses in this race who are race fit, they’re hard and they’re good horses. Nowadays in trotting, there’s not that much difference between a real good horse and a T0. There’s only a few seconds in it.”

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