Jim Cassidy has been brought back to earth by his latest comeback from injury – literally.
The top jockey made a low-profile return with three rides at Wednesday’s Kensington track meeting and was ingloriously dumped by country gelding Laurie’s Love on the way to the starting stalls for his final race of the afternoon.
“We were just cantering around (to the start) and the old fella baulked at the crossing,” Cassidy said.
The hoop was uninjured in the incident and both horse and jockey passed fit to run.
Laurie’s Love finished down the track in the race won by the Chris Waller-trained You’ll Never while Cassidy’s remaining mounts, Bush Pilot and Retort Courteous were also unplaced.
Cassidy has been sidelined since the Melbourne spring carnival after he suffered rib cartilage damage during an overzealous celebratory hug from one of Zoustar’s owners following the colt’s Coolmore Stud Stakes victory.
The rider has shown a remarkable ability to come back from various injuries throughout his career and Wednesday’s meeting provided a perfect pipeopener ahead of the autumn carnival.
“Not bad. A couple of runs will do me good,” he said.
Meanwhile, James Cummings is keen to sound out grandfather Bart about setting Brook Road on a possible Australian Guineas path following her win on Wednesday.
Entries for the Group One closed on Tuesday and Brook Road was not among them but James Cummings believes the filly has the right credentials for the Flemington feature and is keen to lodge a late nomination.
“I will talk to Bart about a late entry for the Australian Guineas,” Cummings said.
“I don’t think it would be money badly spent to keep the dream alive.”
The filly was first-up in the Australian Turf Club Handicap and sprinted too quickly for her rivals to score by 1-3/4 lengths over favourite Pirandello.
She clocked 56.95s for the 1000-metre journey, just over half a second outside the course record.
Brook Road’s win was also welcomed by James McDonald, giving him an overdue first success for the Bart and James Cummings training partnership.
“It’s great to get my first winner for James and Bart,” McDonald said.
“She’s a really nice horse. She’s tractable, she’s got a great turn of foot and she did that easy.”
McDonald’s day was later soured by a four-meeting careless riding suspension for shifting out aboard Brook Road rounding the home turn when insufficiently clear of Pirandello.
He will ride in New Zealand on Sunday at the Karaka Million meeting before beginning the penalty and returns on February 2.
– AAP
