KEY POINTS:
Top New Zealand mare Legs has been retired from racing only days after arriving in Sydney for an autumn campaign.
Legs was sent to the Sydney stable of John O'Shea last week but has already returned after she was found to have torn a suspensory ligament, Mark Chittick of Waikato Stud said.
The 4-year-old is owned by Waikato Stud and Chittick said it was a long way to send a horse to find out she couldn't race.
"The unfortunate thing was she had to go over there to be diagnosed," Chittick said. "There is some indication there may have been some inflammation there beforehand."
Legs won twice at group one level. The first was in the $300,000 New Zealand Oaks (2400m) for 3-year-old fillies at Trentham last March while the second came in the $1 million weight-for-age Kelt Capital Stakes (2040m) at Hastings in October.
She had only one further race after the Kelt when unplaced in the group one Mackinnon Stakes (2000m) in Melbourne in November.
Overall she raced 12 times for five wins, two seconds and a third. Her stake earnings were $875,000.
Legs is by Waikato Stud's top sire Pins and Chittick said she would be mated in the spring with either Cox Plate winner Savabeel or Fast 'N' Famous.
She was trained in New Zealand by Kevin Gray who was to have had the horse returned to him for a defence of the Kelt crown.
- NZPA
