KEY POINTS:
Queensland owner Dick Karreman and his manager, Rick Williams, sat down at The Oaks Stud in Cambridge yesterday to plot Seachange's immediate future.
"It's real headache material," said Williams.
The equine influenza (EI) problem in Australia is steering the Seachange team away from where they know they should be - in Melbourne.
The disease has not reached Victoria, but even within that scenario there is no certainty about what the quarantine protocols will be for a New Zealand horse returning home from Melbourne.
"This is the year to tackle the Cox Plate with what looks to be an ordinary field," says Williams. "But even if you didn't, there is the Myer Stakes and the Emirates Stakes on the last day at Flemington.
"But how do we know when we'd get home - I don't like not being in charge of my own destiny."
Williams and Karreman were yesterday presented with a raft of races Seachange could contest in Dubai early next year.
"Maybe that's the way we'll swing. Our only real option immediately is the Captain Cook Stakes. The money is not great, but it's a Group One."
Seachange was understandably tired yesterday after a superlative effort that saw her beaten half a head, a nose and a nose in the Kelt Capital Stakes at Hastings on Saturday.
