By MIKE DILLON
Allan Sharrock realised over breakfast yesterday he is happy to take the good with the bad.
The phone was strangely silent.
Strangely, because Sharrock fields up to 160 calls a week trying to book his champion apprentice Michael Walker for rides.
With Walker suspended for four racedays neither Call Waiting nor the phone was in use.
"I can tell you it's a relief to get away from the damn thing," said Sharrock, who is averaging 40 calls per raceday.
"I suppose that's better than the other way - having to make 100 calls to get one ride."
Walker resumes his sensational first season at Counties next Wednesday and on Saturday night will manage a thrill he has not experienced in nine months - a night out with the boys.
"I can't remember the last time I did that," said Walker, who will take in a movie or play the pinball machines.
Sharrock was pleased to have Walker at home yesterday instead of tripping away race riding because he sent his new season 2-year-olds along for their first spin at any sort of speed.
"I'm pleased to have Michael here for a few days and so are the staff."
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High profile Wellington owner Ron Dixon started the season with a handful of stars and ends it with one.
Dixon this week sold his New Zealand Derby winner Hades, three months after quitting rising star Skoozi to Graeme Rogerson.
Hades is heading to David Hayes' Hong Kong stable, Dixon admitting he received an offer he could not refuse.
"I got an offer which was around the same level when he was in Sydney in the autumn, but I bought him to race and I wanted to see him go round so I turned it down."
The only racehorse Dixon has left in the Roger James stable is his Adelaide Cup winner Cronus, spelling after mixed form during the Queensland winter carnival.
"We'll bring him back with the second-tier staying races in Melbourne in like the Moonee Valley Cup in mind," said Dixon.
Skoozi is owned in Dubai, but experienced back problems when flown in for the Dubai World Cup meeting in March.
Rogerson said Skoozi is spelling and would be aimed at races like the Cox Plate before being returned to Dubai.
* * *
Class filly Sarwatch will join Lee Freedman's Melbourne stable when she resumes training.
From the Laxon stable, Sarwatch proved the most luckless filly of this season, despite enjoying group success for owners Peter and Philip Vela by winning the Royal Stakes and Highview Stakes.
She needed only an inside gap to add the Ansett Stakes in Sydney to that record.
Class 3-year-old Kasman has had a respiratory operation which will see him miss spring racing.
Trainer Paul O'Sullivan said Kasman had the affliction most of the season.
* * *
The news is all good for fans of Might And Power.
The champion is making pleasing progress at his Rosehill base in his comeback bid which will be aimed at adding another Cox Plate to the one he won in 1998.
The Caulfield-Melbourne Cup winner appears to have made nearly a full recovery from the tendon injury that threatened to end his stunning career.
Also back in work in Sydney in Tie The Knot, who is on a collision course with Sunline.
Trainer Guy Walter has indicated Tie The Knot will also be set for the Cox Plate, missing this year's Melbourne Cup.
Racing: Suspension chance for star apprentice to have a night out
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