MUR Club Update
It looks as if the resumption of racing is on the horizon, though we will have to watch it on tv for a while.
Because of this I would like to improve my communication to you. Firstly, if I can, I will send a video of every runner we have via email so no one will miss out on seeing them run. Also, I see dad did a Zoom video conference last week; very modern for him! I haven’t looked into it yet but I might do the same on a smaller scale. Being ambitious we may even do these around and during the races… though we will have to see!
I have a bit of bad news to tell you all. Unfortunately Miracle Of Medinah has injured his suspensory again. It’s the same area as he injured before and it’s more than likely related. He’s a very frustrating horse because he’s so talented but fragile. I think part of the problem is we didn’t give him the required time to heal from his last injury. He did it very late in the year last year and we tried to work to the same timeline as last year. Tendons and ligaments take a devilishly long time to heal. It’s also not been helped by not having a race to work towards, and not being able to build his exercise up on an even curve. We are trying to train horses to “maybe” run in May or god knows when after, and it’s hard. Some of the tougher horses are fine with it but a horse like Miracle needs much more care. I was devastated at the time because he is our flagship horse; it felt like the end of the world but I’ve had time to reflect on it. In normal circumstances you would retire a horse of his age with his medical record but he was training very well and we got him pretty fit before the injury so the leg can take training still. The vet’s thoughts were with a longer rest there is no reason we couldn’t try and train him again. 10 is old for a flat horse to be in training but he was still showing plenty of enthusiasm for the game so we will cautiously try again. If we do get him back to the track we will probably have to drop him in grade but he will still be competing at a higher level than all the other Club horses (which is mad to think!). The minute we feel he doesn’t want to do it any more or resents it we will stop but he’s very young at heart so I don’t think we are there yet.
Thinking positively, we still have some fantastic horses in the Club and they will continue to entertain us and win us races. The addition of Gifted Dreamer probably doesn’t look that exciting on paper, but I have a bit of faith in him and let’s face it, none of the horses came into the Club with a lot of promise!