Racing: Miss Potential near finish line

Miss Potential, the Waikato mare who came back from a broken leg to win three group one events, will retire from racing if she gets in foal this month.

She will head back to Vinery Stud in the Hunter Valley today in a second bid to get in foal to international sire Red Ransom.

"If she falls pregnant, that will be the end on the racetrack," trainer Bill Borrie said.

Red Ransom served her on October 10, but a scan last week proved negative.

After her first visit to Vinery Stud, Miss Potential headed back to the racetrack, running third in the group two Waterford Crystal Mile at Moonee Valley two weeks ago and second to Lotteria in the group one Myer Classic a week ago.

After the negative scan, Borrie decided to give her one last run, in the Emirates Stakes at Flemington on Saturday, but all manner of events conspired against her before she finished down the track in 12th place.

The draw of 18 did not help.

Borrie said he and jockey Reese Jones would have been happy to stay back in the field, but her involvement in an early scrimmage left them with no choice but to go forward.

"It was a fierce and torrid battle up front and the upshot was that she ended back in the field," Borrie said.

Miss Potential was also heavily in season and Borrie thought that affected her performance.

While a nought at the end of her formline is an unfair blip for a horse who always gives her all on the racetrack, Borrie is relaxed about the conditional decision to retire her.

"The intention of this trip was for her to get pregnant, so the efforts on the track have been a bonus.

"It's been a wonderful career. She has done more than enough to justify a nice paddock at home."

Miss Potential's promising career looked over when she suffered a spiral fracture in her near foreleg cannonbone early in 2003.

Borrie decided to save her and erected a contraption that allowed her limited movement in her stable as the leg stabilised.

She returned to racing six months later and stunned with her first group one victory, in the Mudgway Partsworld Stakes.

She showed her true class with a win over top Melbourne filly Alinghi in last year's Nestle Peters Classic at Flemington, while her third group one win was in the Stoney Bridge Stakes at Hastings this spring.

In all, she has raced 37 times for eight wins, 10 seconds and three thirds for total stakemoney of A$1,132,765 ($1,227,530).

- NZPA