Star sprinter Giga Kick could miss the autumn carnival after trainer Clayton Douglas revealed his muscle injury is taking longer to heal than anticipated.
The gun four-year-old was set to resume in the Lightning Stakes at Flemington next year but now seems unlikely to take his place in the G1 sprint.
“Unfortunately it’s just taking a bit longer than we would’ve liked,” Douglas said.
“We had some scans done the other day and it just hadn’t really healed how we thought it might have, he’ll have another couple of scans in a couple of weeks and we will know a bit more then.
“The early part of the autumn is definitely out of contention at this stage.
“We’ll take a fairly conservative approach this autumn with him. We haven’t made any plans we’ll just wait until he is 100 per cent ready to roll.”
To the eye, Douglas said the Everest winner is sound, happy, and healthy but injury is still taking time to recover.
“To visually look at it, it’s fine, it’s a little bit more time he just needs for the healing process to happen, it’s a deep muscle injury,” Douglas said.
“He’s so valuable that we just don’t want to rush him, we are being patient and he’ll pay us back, we know he will. It’s better to get it right now then start getting him going and realise.”
– racing.com
