A minor setback has further affected the New Zealand Cup preparation of Don’t Stop Dreaming and his race now is against time as much as versus his rivals.
“”It is still on but it has got to the stage where you wouldn’t want anything else to go wrong. We are hoping for October in a race maybe like the Methven Cup maybe and if we get there we should be ok. But another setback would be a threat to starting in the Cup” Nathan said
The problem as usual is in the feet where “Darcy” has battled problems throughout his career.
“It’s complicated ” Nathan said “but basically he needs to be raised quite high behind for best balance and we can’t shoe him like we’d like to just at the moment.So we have backed off him again for a short time and let it come right.Hopefully that will be in time for the Cup”
While Don’t Stop Dreaming had a busy time over the spring and summer Nathan does not think that is a contributing factor of any significance.
“He has had some sort of worry right from the start and it is a case of managing it which we have done up unitl now ok. Hopefully a short rest will fix the problem but if not he is going to need more time and we are running out of it”
The winner of 15 of 28 starts inlcuding two Sires Stakes Finals and scoring a second in the Hunter Cup this year,Don’t Stop Dreaming is among the few leading the likely defence of the New Zealand Cup from Australian invaders of extremely high quality and any omission would be a setback for the promotion of the race.
So its case of fingers crossed rather than pressing onward at the moment for one of our brightest hopes.
Pic: Don’t Stop Dreaming