Just like Rafaello, Spanish Bay is resuming in Friday’s S$125,000 Kranji Stakes A race over 1200m, and coincidentally after being sidelined by the same ailment - bone chips.
While Ricardo Le Grange’s Rafaello, who is back after a six-month layoff, had chips taken out from his near fore fetlock, Spanish Bay was even worse off as he had the dreaded “floating fragments” removed, also via surgery, from both fetlocks.
Naturally, Spanish Bay was on the outer for a longer period of time – 10 months. James Peters’ 2016 Saas Fee Stakes winner has not been sighted since his unplaced run in the EW Barker Trophy (1400m) in November.
The young English trainer has earmarked the Racing Guide Classic (1400m) on October 8 as the Bernard Lee-owned gelding’s short-term goal should he pull up without any hiccups after Friday’s test.
“He had fetlock chips removed from both legs. He’s all good now, but we still have to go easy on him,” said Peters.
“It was when he went for a break after the EW Barker Trophy that he started to have lameness issues shortly after he came back into work.
“I gave him a couple of trials and he ran okay. He’s drawn wide (10) and will probably need the run, and his next run will be in the Racing Guide Classic in a couple of weeks’ time.”
Peters has booked former two-time Singapore champion apprentice jockey Shafiq Rizuan for the comeback run of the former Singapore Three-Year-Old Classic (1400m) winner (2015 when then prepared by Michael Freedman and ridden by Saifudin Ismail).
“Shafiq will ride him as he knows him well. He rode him at his two trials and was pretty happy with his condition,” said Peters.
“It’s a competitive field but my horse is in good form and if he gets luck in the running, he may run a place, but whatever he does, he will improve on that.”
The Nadeem six-year-old was sold through Little Avondale Stud's 2013 NZB Select draft for $85,000. -STC