Romney's Choice looking up after fall

Friday 30 June 2017, 5:20pm

Noel Mayfield-Smith's rehabilitation plan to return Romney's Choice to racing after a last-start fall only has one element outside his control.

Unfortunately for the Hawkesbury trainer, the mare has drawn precisely where he didn't want her to be when the 11-strong field for a Benchmark Handicap (1200m) jumps on Saturday at Rosehill.

After such a traumatic incident at Warwick Farm in late May, Mayfield-Smith was anxious for the four-year-old to be allocated a wide gate out of harm's way so she could work back into racing without feeling cluttered.

"I've put in her in this race because it's a beautiful big track, roomy, nice running, no need to bustle and I've drawn barrier one. The last place I wanted to be was on the rail," Mayfield-Smith said.

Romney's Choice was in exactly that position as she rounded the turn at Warwick Farm before she crashed into the barrier and toppled over.

Luckily Romney's Choice and apprentice Nick Heywood were not seriously injured and Mayfield-Smith will soon learn if she suffered any lasting psychological damage.

"That's the unknown. She's still as aggressive in her work as she always has been so it looks like nothing's worried her," he said.

Mayfield-Smith said Romney's Choice suffered deep bruising but sessions with masseuse Jenny Carroll eased the pain.

"She had a lot of fluid in the muscle at the top of the off-side shoulder," he said.

"She wasn't excessively lame. She was just a bit stiff. Jenny got it all out of there.

"I want to put her through her grades at this stage and see if she keeps lining up then see if she can possibly measure up to something a little bit better later on."

– AAP

Latest News

Prime Thoroughbreds - We have a Host of Leaders in our Team

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Prime Thor­ough­bred’s cur­rent rac­ing team is putt­ing to­gether quite a re­cord. We have 22 hors­es that have raced in our team at pre­sent. Six­teen of th­ese are win­n­ers in­clud­ing the Stakes win­n­ing trio Ru­bisa­ki, Fituese and Xtreme­time with Miss Di­vine Em and Miss In Charge run­n­ing 4th in Stakes races. This sees a stakes win­n­er to win­n­er ra­tio of 18.75% with a stake’s per­formed to win­n­er ra­tio of 31.25%. Th­ese are ex­cep­tio­n­al fig­ures.   More »

Freedmans land maiden Group One win

Saturday, 27 February 2021

Un­der-rat­ed fil­ly For­bid­den Love has emerged as an au­tumn car­ni­val smokey with a bril­liant per­for­mance to win the Sur­round Stakes at Rand­wick.  More »

Capriccio completes Damian Lane treble

Saturday, 27 February 2021

In a big day for coun­try-trained hors­es, War­r­nam­bool fil­ly Capric­cio has tak­en out the In­glis Dash for Daniel Bow­man.  More »

More news headlines »