Racing: Favourite out a Real Tonic

Melbourne-based Real Tonic won at Matamata this month.

The job of Real Tonic for tomorrow's $40,000 Mad Butcher Pakuranga Hunt Cup at Ellerslie was made that much easier with the breakdown yesterday of pre-post favourite Stitched.

The Wellington Steeplechase winner Stitched was found to have a tendon strain yesterday morning.

A devastated Allan Sharrock said he detected a pulse in a tendon yesterday morning.

"He's too good to take any further risks with, so he had to come out.

"It's a shame because the Wellington Steeplechase, Grand National and Great Northern have never been won by the same trainer in the same year and I was looking forward to being the first."

Sharrock won the Grand National with Bogeyman and believes Stitched was the perfect horse for the $100,000 Great Northern Steeplechase after the Pakuranga Hunt Cup.

Fellow Taranaki trainer John Wheeler is looking for a level of Pakuranga Hunt Cup revenge for Real Tonic.

Wheeler flew the class jumper over from Australia on the eve of last year's Hunt Cup and the horse covered himself in glory finishing a close second to Bart.

It was thought at the time that that race would set him up perfectly for the Great Northern two weeks later, but in retrospect Wheeler feels it might have all been a bit too much for Real Tonic.

"He failed to finish the Great Northern, but I don't think, like many did, that it was a case of the distance being too much for him.

"I've targeted these two races again. I brought him back from Melbourne six or seven weeks ago and he's had a decent rest."

Wheeler produced Real Tonic at the Matamata meeting on August 10 and although the result was a narrow win, it showed he was heading in the right direction. "He derived a lot of benefit from that Matamata win. He should be hard to beat."

Just The Man is the mystery. Last year's Great Northern winner was in good form early this campaign, winning the Waikato Steeplechase, but was pulled up in the Manawatu Steeples.

That does not concern trainer Davina Waddell.

"Manawatu was a total disaster. He pulled both front shoes on the way down there and absolutely hated the heavy conditions, and I mean hated.

"He's a horse that has to be mentally happy even before he's physically happy and I'm putting the Manawatu incident behind us."

No further rain would encourage Waddell.

"He's really looking for better footing. I'm not doing a rain dance at the moment."

At Ellerslie, rain close to raceday seems to affect the steeplechase course to an even greater degree than the course proper.

"He'll pull some improvement from this race as well," said Waddell.