Trainer Justin King believes an injury-enforced lay-off could have been a blessing in disguise for his star sprinter Incapacitated, who returns to racing in Friday’s heats of the Ladbrokes Graeme Hull Memorial Cup at WaggaWagga.
The winner of last year’s Christmas Gift at Wentworth Park, Incapacitated was brilliant winning the Richmond Derby final in February, but in his next start he was dragged down in a heat of the Golden Easter Egg and suffered a hip injury.
“He was dragged down coming across from the eight in the Easter Egg heats, and pulled up sore afterwards,” King explained. “He had to have two or three weeks off, but his couple of trials back are probably the best he’s ever gone.
“I think that forced lay-off has probably done him a lot of good. He had been up for a while but it’s hard to back off them when they are going so well.
“It’s really freshened him up. He trialled 22.4s at Richmond, then broke the 24s post to post at Wenty. And I took him to Wagga for a trial last Sunday and he went well there too. He is going alright.
“It’s a big track at Wagga and that suits him. Because of the lay-off I didn’t want to go down (to Victoria) for the Harrison Dawson (heats) at Sandown on Thursday, he’s just not at 100 per cent yet and you need to be 100 per cent to be taking on the top dogs.
“So I thought I would try and find something with some good prizemoney ($25,000 to the winner) where he’s not running into the real top class ones. It’s still not going to be easy, but at least he won’t be against the very best dogs like he would have been at Sandown.”
Incapacitated has drawn perfectly in box two in heat one of the Cup.
Correy also headed to Wagga with Tiggerlong Tonk last September and won the Regional Final of the TAB Million Dollar Chase. Wagga is actually the home track of Tiggerlong Tonk who took out the Group 1 Perth Cup last month.
“Tonk is career best form. He’s probably going better than what he ever has right now,” Correy said. “I would have loved to have brought him to Wagga, his local track, but he’s good enough to run down here in the Harrison Dawson heats at Sandown on Thursday.”
The leading contender for the Grenfells is Correy’s star Chaser Yozo Bale who won last year’s Bendigo Cup and Ballarat Cup, and in recent starts was runner-up in the Geelong Cup, and last start was second to Qwara Bale in the Warrnambool Cup Final. He has come up with box one in fourth heat of the Cup.
“The idea behind going to Wagga with Yozo was that he’s just not quite a strong 500m dog. He can run it, don’t get me wrong, but with the Harrison Dawson on, we decided to separate him and Tonk, and put Yozo in a race he should be close to winning.”
