What was looking an amazing year, is suddenly turning very sour.
We have had a couple of setbacks but nothing prepared me for Tuesday’s trial session at Belle Vue.
We were giving our Laurels and Oaks hopefuls a look at the track in preparation for the start of both events and the first blow was seeing Aero Inferno come off the track hobbling with what appears to be a broken hock.
He had actually trialled quite well and I couldn’t believe it.
That was followed soon after by Vatican Balotelli having his card marked for fighting.
Although he had eased in a race at Perry Barr, I really didn’t see it coming. The stewards had no choice though, it was a bad one and I apologised to connections of the dog he attacked.
Peerless Trio went well in her trial, which I was pleased about but then Newyork City Boy broke down at the first bend, also with a broken hock.
To make matters worse, this morning we took Peerless Trio out of her kennel and she was hobbling too. We suspect a cracked hock. The three lame dogs are off to the vet tomorrow.
It was all very hard to take and you struggle to come to terms with it. But with a bit of hindsight, I thought about Mitch Millward and thought, ‘he would have loved to be at Belle Vue for a trial session’. Losing someone so young is a real tragedy.
Hopefully we will still have Camp Joker available for the Laurels and there would be lots of kennels who would like just one dog as good as him.
We still have two left in the Eclipse but they are both railers and have drawn trap five. They could barely be worse draws.
Newinn Yolo was eliminated and we will now give him a winter break.
To be honest, I was disappointed with his heat run. At Wimbledon, he had only just been led up by Farloe Blitz – one of the fastest dogs in England and Ireland to the third bend.
There was no sign of that zip at Nottingham and at this stage, I am questioning whether we will ever see the real Yolo again.
