Waller to give Catkins one more chance to show she still has it
Popular grey mare Catkins will be given one more chance to show Chris Waller she still has a future on the racetrack.
Waller said he would make an important call on Catkins’ when the six-year-old was put through her paces in a genuine barrier trial test at Rosehill on Monday.
The winner of more than $2 million in stakes after 16 victories and 13 placings, Catkins has reached the crossroads of her career after disappointing her legion of fans in a lacklustre return to racing.
Catkins couldn’t beat a runner home in the Millie Fox Stakes at Rosehill last Saturday, leaving her trainer dumbfounded.
“I don’t really find that horses give up like that but in saying that she’s not pulling up distressed, she’s certainly not sore,” Waller said.
“She just doesn’t get beaten like that.”
Waller said Catkins would be asked a serious question in a 900m barrier trial in which first-up Expressway Stakes winner Our Boy Malachi is expected to be among her opposition.
“She doesn’t necessarily have to win but she has to be impressive. She will be made to do something,” Waller said.
Should Catkins do enough to convince Waller to push on into the autumn, she will be afforded the opportunity to claim the Group One race that is missing from her outstanding record.
“If she has one more run it will be in the Coolmore Classic over 1500 (metres),” Waller said.
Horse owners: Melbourne Cup scratching was wrong
The owners of a racehorse scratched from the Melbourne Cup say they should have been able to rely on the expertise of the vet who treated their $9 hopeful.
Four-time Melbourne Cup winner Lloyd Williams and the horse’s other owners are suing a Ballarat vet clinic, arguing its negligence caused them “catastrophic loss and harm” when Amralah tested positive to a banned substance.
“Anderson is not the local vet on the corner. He’s a registered equine specialist,” the owners’ barrister Mark Robins QC said of the defendant, Brian Howard Anderson, in a Victorian Supreme Court hearing on Thursday.