He won’t be running in tomorrow night’s $125,000 PETstock Ballarat Pacing Cup, but Sequoiahs Spirit remains on target to contest the 2008 Watpac Inter Dominion, which begins at Geelong on Saturday, February 16.
Trainer Glenn Douglas confirmed today that his stable star was suffering from a mild infection. While it was bad enough to prevent him from taking on Blacks A Fake, Safari and co at Ballarat, it won’t rule him out of Watpac ID08.
“He’s just got a low-level bacterial infection and we were just advised that we better give it a miss this weekend,” Douglas said.
“He’s just been off his food and his legs were puffed up so we’ve decided to err on the side of caution.
“We’ve probably opted to miss this race for the fact that there’s more (big races) on the way. I’ll just give him an easy week to get over it and he’ll be back into it next week.”
Sequoiahs Spirit’s scratching ends what has been a horror week for the gelding’s driver Daryl Douglas.
It comes just five days after Douglas learned that his plum drive, reigning Hankook Tyres Hunter Cup champion Sting Lika Bee, had been retired after injuring a suspensory in last Saturday night’s 2Construct Moonee Valley Cup.
Sequoiahs Spirit, who was to start from gate three tomorrow night, joins the Lance Justice-trained Smooth Crusa as race-eve scratchings from the PETstock Ballarat Cup.
Justice has decided to target tonight’s $16,000 Renown Silverware Ararat Pacing Cup with Smooth Crusa, who was first emergency for tomorrow night’s big race.
Joining Sequoiahs Spirit and Smooth Crusa on the list of feature-race scratchings from tomorrow night’s program is the Chris Alford-trained Conquer All, who is out of the second heat of the Sky Channel Dullard Trotters Cup.
