Racing: Gutsy mare faces retirement

The remarkable career of Miss Potential could be over.

The topweight for this afternoon's $200,000 Waiwera Infinity Railway had to be scratched yesterday afternoon when heat was discovered in a pastern and slight filling appeared in a tendon.

"We got our vet, Murray Gilmore, to examine her and the x-rays showed a bone chip in the joint that she injured when she got bumped around in the float accident going to Hastings in the spring," said owner and trainer Bill Borrie.

"We are going to take it really quietly with her and see where we end up. It could be her last race. We have no intention of subjecting her to the trauma she went through when she broke her leg [February 2003].

"We might be lucky enough to get another run out of her, but that remains to be seen."

Miss Potential displayed astonishing determination as well as enormous talent.

She twice stretched the neck of Australian ace Starcraft at the Hastings carnival in the spring and gained so much admiration that Starcraft's connections tried to buy her for big money.

She had a hard race in this year's tough Cox Plate, but backed up a week later and downed leading Australian filly Alinghi in a A$500,000 group one event.

Miss Potential, a six-year-old by Dolphin Street, has raced 31 times for seven wins, eight seconds and two thirds. Her earnings are more than $658,000.