THE two best thoroughbred sprinters in Australia will be in action in rather different circumstances on Friday, reports The Age. It says: There will be an official cheer squad and millions of eyes on Black Caviar as she tries to take her unbeaten streak to 17 in the Australia Stakes at Moonee Valley. And in Sydney the only horse to have stretched the unbeaten star, Hay List, will make a low-key return from a life-threatening injury at the barrier trials. The hulking sprinter's trainer, John McNa
THE two best thoroughbred sprinters in Australia will be in action in rather different circumstances on Friday, reports The Age.
It says: There will be an official cheer squad and millions of eyes on Black Caviar as she tries to take her unbeaten streak to 17 in the Australia Stakes at Moonee Valley.
And in Sydney the only horse to have stretched the unbeaten star, Hay List, will make a low-key return from a life-threatening injury at the barrier trials. The hulking sprinter's trainer, John McNair, said yesterday he would decide later in the week whether Hay List would travel to Randwick or Wyong for his first trial since a leg infection saw him scratched from the Doomben 10,000 in the winter and threatened to end his career and his life.
''We need to trial him on Friday if we are going to have him ready to run in the Lightning Stakes [at Flemington on February 18], which our preferred option,'' McNair said. ''I have spoken to Glyn [Schofield] and he is going to find out how Randwick is because I want the track to have a bit of give in it. Wyong trials are on Friday as well and we could quite easily go there.''
Given that Black Caviar steps up to 1400 metres after her first-up run, she may not meet her rival on Australian soil again this season. However, the pair may yet reacquaint themselves at Royal Ascot in England in June. (www.theage.com.au)