Cooldine backs out of Hennessey and will miss the rest of season
The Hennessey Gold Cup loses another entry as Cooldine is withdrawn from Saturday’s race for a wind operation, rendering him unable to perform in any fixture taking place in the entire duration of this racing season.
Cooldine’s withdrawal leaves eight participants to run Grade 1 contest at Leopardstown, held over a distance of three miles. These eight racehorses will compete against each other in a bid to take away Joncol’s title as the previous victor from him.
Cooldine has been under the care of trainer Willie Mullins who took the liberty of informing reporters on Friday, that the horse had to be pulled out of all races immediately as the horse was making funny sounds though he appeared fine and upon inspection,
a paralysis on one side of Cooldine’s larynx was discovered on Wednesday. The paralysis is causing him serious breathing problems and has to be operated on as soon as possible.
Mullins was rather distraught and worried when he told reporters that no abnormalities in the horse’s breathing had been noticed, not even by any of the riders, before this but he believed that this problem was present earlier and slowly built up to what
it is now. The trainer thinks that it may be the reason why the horse has not been performing so well lately, which is why he plans to pull Cooldine out for a break that will last this entire season and hopefully, by next season the horse will be right as
rain and ready to get back to racing.
Although he is set to undergo wind operation to fix his problem, Mullins has expressed qualms about the surgery being successful on a horse as old as Cooldine.
The horse is a veteran of nine years old and has not been able to bag a race since his victory at the RSA Chase at the Cheltenham Festival in 2009, after which he managed to get second place in Hennessey Gold Cup last year. However, he was criticised on
his most recent start in the Lexus Chase at Leopardstown in December of 2010, in which he put up a lackluster performance.
Tags: