NZ HARNESS NEWS
An injury which threatened to derail a potential summer of glory for superstar pacer Lazarus is looking like being back on track despite missing a Western Australia feature this weekend.
The champion, who produced a phenomenal performance on Friday night to finish second in the Fremantle Cup after sitting three-wide the trip, pulled up with some bruising in a hoof on Saturday morning which had his co-trainer, Mark Purdon initially quite concerned.
“It didn’t look too good there on Saturday,” he said.
“I’m not sure what we can exactly put it down to.
“Perhaps the different nature of the ground over here, but he was pretty lame.”
That lameness led to the likely situation where Lazarus would miss the Western Australia Cup this weekend and then both the Hunter Cup and Miracle Mile next month but Purdon’s optimism grew significantly early in the week.
“He was, touch wood, a lot better on it and not anywhere near as lame so hopefully it’s not as bad as what we thought it was going to be.
“I’m going to give him a swim today (Tuesday) and then all going well I might give him a light jog tomorrow and we will really know what’s going on from there I think.”
Meanwhile, Purdon has been thrown a curveball with enigmatic pacer, Heaven Rocks in this weekend’s Ballarat Cup in his first run back off the unruly.
The dual Jewels winner was given the one marble for this week.
“That’s the one draw we did not want with him.
“But we have to get off the unruly at some point; he’s a good horse but he can’t keep giving other good horses a start.
“So, we have decided to try and get things sorted before those big races roll around.”
Purdon said he would speak with co-trainer, Natalie Rasmussen later on Tuesday about who would drive the big pacer and who would sit behind stablemate and rival, Vincent.
“We need to have a chat about that one still.
“I’ll see what Natalie wants to do.”
Spankem and The Devil’s Own will also be engaged at Ballarat, Titan Banner is set to race at Menangle in Sydney while back on home soil both Funonthebeach and Duplicated will race at Wyndham.
- NZ Harness News
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