If Price Is Right, Ruler Is Ready To Rumble

The Age

Friday August 29, 2008

Patrick Bartley

A year ago, the big red horse was crippled. Now he's being set for the cups, reports Patrick Bartley.

EVERY morning, before the sun rises, trainers across the state make a daily ritual of peeling back the rugs of their horses, and, with breath held, monitor how they got through the previous day's trackwork.

Sometimes it's an uneventful chore, but at others it's a heart-breaking exercise to discover a joint with filling in it, a suspensory problem or a runny nose, with a rising temperature that has seemingly materialised in just hours.

A year ago, Mick Price experienced the ultimate in disappointments when his group 1 performer Pompeii Ruler endured a career-threatening suspensory injury on the cusp of the spring carnival.

Tomorrow, 12 months of patience, worry and belief in the six-year-old will play out in the Memsie Stakes at Caulfield when Pompeii Ruler returns to racing.

Price said he and owner Brian Coyle were distraught when a scan showed Pompeii Ruler was to have his career put on hold.

"I was devastated, I was shocked and disappointed, more so because Pompeii Ruler was a genuine group 1 horse and they're like pieces of gold," Price said. "I think I asked Brian did he have the patience to put up with a rehabilitation that could last 12 months or be rail-roaded by a recurrence of the injury at any time.

"He agreed (to press on) and it's been a long journey."

Pompeii Ruler has been lightly raced during a 16-start career that reaped a group 1 Australian Cup victory at Caulfield early last year.

"Look, it's part of being a horse trainer. Every morning I come through the gates, I've got a big team of horses and I know that I'm looking for a good smack in the head from a horse that had showed me a lot, but in just 12 hours had developed a problem.

"I've got 60 horses here, but for the owners, most of them have just got the one and they cling to the dream for that horse. But when you've got to make that phone call, it really is the downside of horse training."

Price wasn't going to allow the injury to overwhelm his target of having the horse back this spring. After being spelled, Pompeii Ruler was brought in after the spring carnival last year for a light preparation and sent back to the paddock.

The gelding was dispatched to Kilmore, where he was further conditioned on an aquasiser, which meant no pressure was being applied to the leg and the horse was gaining fitness.

"After coming back from Kilmore, we gave him a preparation, and then as the autumn started, we asked for a second set of scans and to me they looked pretty much perfect. But the vet, and credit to him, found some minute activity in the soft-tissue area, so we decided then, let's give him more time," Price said.

After a break, Pompeii Ruler was back going through his paces for another preparation. Not strenuous, but more work to build up his body for a spring carnival.

"Look, they're athletes. We've just had 16 days of athletes from all over the world competing and they're always on a knife-edge of injuries, just like racehorses," Price said.

"This time in, I'm very happy. The scans are good and his recent trial at Geelong was sensational. If he can finish right on the backsides of the first five on Saturday I'd be pretty pleased, because I'm racing him into his targets, not trackworking him in.

"For instance, on Tuesday morning he galloped over 600 metres in 39 on the course proper; nice work, but it was 12 lengths slower than a horse that didn't have any ailments."

Since the injury last year, Price has maintained that Pompeii Ruler has the ability and attitude to be at the very top of the tree this spring. He accepts that for a group 1 horse it's been an unorthodox preparation, but one that gives Pompeii Ruler every chance to fulfil the goals.

"Don't make any mistake about it - he's going to the Caulfield Cup and then he'll take on the Cox Plate and his final target will be the Melbourne Cup. That's how highly I rank him," Price said.

"We've done everything we could from this end; the horse seems happy and is enjoying his work and there's been absolutely no sign of trouble. "That's the caper we're in and, as they say, you've got to take the good with the bad."

In the case of Pompeii Ruler this spring, connections are due for a bit of the good.

© 2008 The Age

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