Can Of has endured the first major setback of his highly promising racing career but he should be back in action soon.
The exciting sprinter, who won five of his first nine races, has been out of action since May 24 after tearing his stomach muscle at Wentworth Park.
Trainer Beau Hedley feared it could be a potentially career-ending injury and has spent the last few weeks carefully nursing his promising charge back to health.
Although he is not quite back fully firing yet, Hedley said the signs for a late-winter return for Can Of were promising.
“He’s been working up the 360m straight here at home,” Hedley said.
“He’s only been going about 80 per cent, but that’s good.
“He should not have lost a lot of his fitness so we’ll give him another week or so and then step things up.
“The main thing is he seems to be holding up nicely, which is great to see.”
Can Of was being targeted for a crack at the Peter Mosman Classic and was one of the early favourites for this year's race when he sustained the injury starting the 520m Rapidvite Sprint Series Final at the Glebe track.
He raced through to the finish but trailed home well last.
It was a real blow for the dog who had chalked up back-to-back wins in good company at Wentworth Park in his previous two outings.
“He had a severe pinched nerve in his back,” Hedley said. “I would say he took the stride, overstretched and tore the muscle.
“”I wanted him to stop running but once he was off, that was it.
“You could see his tail going in circles as he was trying to control himself.
“It’s not a great feeling seeing that happen to your dog but at least the outcome was better than I feared.”
Hedley said his charge would likely be back racing in about six weeks’ time but is planning on taking things slowly.
“We don’t want to put too much pressure on him,” Hedley said.
“We’ll probably look for a fifth grade race at Maitland to get him back into things and then we’ll look for more lucrative races at Wentworth Park.
“We want to take things nicely with him but it’s looking good.”
