Akuta made a return to the winner’s circle on Friday 20 months after an accident made that once just a forlorn hope. But it was the first 10 days that made it all possible.
Akuta suffered a freak tendon injury when a shoe worked loose in work on the eve of an Australian campaign in January 2024.Barbara Hunter, elite equine surgeon at Matamata Veterinary and Mark’s partner, recalls it was not a pretty sight.
“This time last year the injured leg was so enlarged it looked like a banana was attached to the cannon bone.”
Barbara, widely experienced in North America before coming to New Zealand,says fast action on the day made the recovery possible.
“Regardless of the cause of a tendon injury the first 10 days are some of the most important of the entire rehab. Like humans it is about rest,compression and ice. It was done meticulously with Kuta and that allowed us to have a viable tendon to work on for the next 20 months.If they didn’t already know it I would love people to realise how vital that first 10 days is in setting up for the rest of a long rehab tendon programme”
Mark was more optimistic than some about the outcome but is the first to say it was a team effort. The team agreed that a full year’s rest was the minimum with a lot of therapy along the way.Then there was a slow buildup,a trial and then another break before getting back to racing. So the taste of victory on Friday night was sweet indeed.
As for Barbara the right person in the right place at the right time, she is delighted the treatment has been successful to the extent the horse got back to the track “for any level of racing”
“He is such an energetic horse who loves working and one of the most difficult aspects of the programme was finding ways to work off that energy without putting too much load on the tendon.We had to get creative there”
That creative thinking could make any human feel tired just reading about it.
“He learned to swim and water walk. He was broken to saddle and ridden up and down steep hills as well as spending endless hours of controlled exercise on the treadmill to work the tendon into the right state before he ever went back to the cart.It was a huge team effort.A lot of people put a lot of time into this”
Not all horses,especially elite performers, can make it back to their previous level of performance after tendon trouble but Mark is quick to point out a major difference with Kuta’s injury.
“It was an accident with no history. You can strike problems with some horses reaching their very best again when its a a stress related injury and its true many are never quite the same”
Mark has struck that before but had success with Hands Christian back in the day who suffered dual stress tendon injuries and still won an Easter Cup (2012)and a race in Australia. Nathan recalls his first Group 1 training success, the Blacks a Fake in Queensland with Ohoka Punter, formerly trained by Tony Herlihy,who came back from dual tendon stress injuries to score at the highest level.He had looked a potential superstar as a three year old.
“He never went amiss while I had him,but he was high maintenance” Nathan recalled.
“He was iced and bandaged after every piece of work and all the precautions were taken. You have to assess a horse’s potential against the sort of time you need to put in with that sort of injury.He had that ”
Happily the ability of a horse like Akuta also made that assessment something of a no brainer.
“You would need a pretty astute eye to pick which leg was affected now” Barbara said
“Fingers crossed for the next few months”