Ayrton’s (NZ) (Iffaaj) racing career is slowly getting back on track with the talented yet largely untested galloper set to return to stable life in the next few weeks.
Co-trainer Mick Price said on Monday that his boom horse had fully thrown off the effects of an apparent poisonous spider bite that not only derailed his spring campaign but threatened to curtail his short racing creer.
“He’s very well and he comes back into the stable on Monday the 18th of January,” Price was pleased to announce on Monday.
“He obviously had seven weeks of extensive treatment with antibiotics and anti-inflammatories to get him over his toxic bite there.
“He had some poison in the leg there for a while and he has a little bit of residual scar tissue there but the horse is very sound and he’s flying around the paddock.”
Price said the timing of his return to the stable meant the autumn in Melbourne would come up too quickly. “It probably puts him into the Sydney and Brisbane campaigns,” he said.
Ayrton has raced seven times for five wins and two placings and earnings of $415,000.
Price said Ayrton was likely to step up to longer trips in the autumn after winning the 1600-metre Gunsynd Classic in Brisbane last winter at his first and only attempt beyond 1400 metres.
“I thought when he got to the Gunsynd Classic, he was very strong at the end and I’ve always thought he’d be a 2000-metre horse than anything so that is the path we’ll go down.”
In his absence from the track over the spring, Ayrton lost his mantle as the Price and Kent Jnr stable’s pin-up horse with I’m Thunderstruck’s Golden Eagle victory earning him that right.
Price said that while the final parts of I’m Thunderstruck’s autumn campaign were yet to be finalised, he envisaged an All-Star Mile campaign complimented by a Doncaster Handicap run in Sydney.
‘’At this stage, it should be All-Star Mile at run number three (for the campaign) and Doncaster run number four,’’ Price said.
‘’He’s due to come back into Cranbourne shortly and I think he also will get out to 2000 metres maybe in those races (Doomben Cup and Q22) in Brisbane.’’
Price said the stable’s Blue Sapphire Stakes winner Extreme Warrior was also back in work and progressing towards some G1 autumn targets.
‘’I think his two goal races will probably be the Oakleigh Plate and the Galaxy,’’ he said.
‘’The idea is to win a group 1 with him. He’s very good in himself. He’s not a long way off trialling and he seems to be going good and is very well within himself.’’
