It won’t be as early as first planned, but Victorian racing fans will at least get to see star colt Rich Enuff in action during the Relaxed Racing period, reports Racing Victoria.
The $1 million Lexus Newmarket Handicap (1200m), at Flemington on 14 March, has replaced the $400,000 Sportingbet Orr Stakes (1400m), to be run at Caulfield a fortnight earlier, as the key Melbourne target for the three-year-old.
Cranbourne-based Ken Keys was forced to realign goals for Rich Enuff, who was originally slated to resume in next Saturday’s Group 2 Australia Stakes (1200m) at Moonee Valley, after he returned an elevated white cell count.
“We were heading towards the Orr, but we had to put that on hold,” Keys told RSN’s Racing Ahead. “The setback being that he had an elevated white cell count, so we just had to back off a bit.
“We were planning on trialling last week, on Monday at Cranbourne, looking to go towards the Australia Stakes and then the Orr, but the moment that white cell count popped up on the blood we pulled the pin and stopped.
“We treated him for a week, backed right off him and started again.”