Alligator Blood is no certainty to feature in the 2024 spring carnival, with connections saying the champion horse will tell them when enough is enough.
The seven-time Group 1-winner, who made an incredible return to the track after kissing spine surgery, won’t be raced on for the sake of it despite still seemingly being at the top of his game.
“He’s done heaps already; it wouldn’t worry us if he said he’s had enough and wants to pull up stumps,” owner Jeff Simpson said.
“We’re not going to push him at all, we never have all his life, so why start now? He’s a magnificent horse and he’s done great by us, so we’ll just see what he wants to do.”
After a brilliant spring carnival which netted Group 1 wins in the Underwood and Caulfield Stakes, Alligator Blood is currently spelling at Oak Ridge in New South Wales and will soon return to work ahead of Group 1 targets in Melbourne in the autumn.
“He’s on track for the autumn,” Simpson said.
“He’s probably going to have two runs – the Futurity and the All-Star Mile. Then we’ll put him out again and see if he wants to come back in the spring.
“Nothing has been set in stone. He’ll tell us what he wants to do. We were thrilled with Romantic Warrior’s win in Hong Kong. We were a long neck off him in a Cox Plate, so we know on a global scale we are thereabouts.”
– racing.com
