Ride High sidelined with injury

By Adam Hamilton

AUSTRALIA’S most exciting pacer Ride High looks set to miss all the big summer races with a suspensory ligament injury.

Trainer Clayton Tonkin confirmed the injury and scratched him from Saturday night’s $300,000 Group 1 Victoria Cup at Tabcorp Park Melton.

Fears emerged Ride High’s shock defeat – just his second loss in 18 starts - in last Saturday night’s Group 2 Smoken Up Sprint was caused by a lot more than his hard run or a lack of fitness.

“It’s a suspensory (ligament). We’ve just found out. It’s his nearside front leg,” he said. “We knew something wasn’t right the other night.”

If there is any upside, Tonkin said the diagnosis was minor.

“The vet says it isn’t bad, but these things are never good, either,” Tonkin said. “He’s got to have six weeks of light jogging and rehab, then be scanned again. We’ve got to hope it scans well after that and go from there.”

Ride High roared to the front at the 400m in the Smoken Up and looked set for an easy win before weakening uncharacteristically from the top of the home straight to finish fifth as a $1.10 favourite, beaten almost 13m, by $126 outsider Rishi last Saturday night.

Although immediate post-race checks didn’t reveal anything, Tonkin suspected there was an issue.

Ride High’s injury robs the Victoria Cup of its headline act, but, thankfully, Miracle Mile and Hunter Cup winner King Of Swing is confirmed to travel down from Sydney for Saturday night’s feature 

He looks set to be one of a staggering five Cup runners for trainer Craig Cross. The others being: Balraj, Cash N Flow, Alta Orlando and Bling It On.

Champion driver Chris Alford is set to snare the King Of Swing drive unless Luke McCarthy is granted a permit to travel which excludes him from quarantining for two weeks when he returns to NSW.