Into the Deep end

Deep Ocean is going to finally get a run for us on Friday. Deep is a very nice four-year-old Sinndar colt who came to me from a trainer in Marseille, and I have to say he’s been a bit of a challenge since he arrived in early November. Not surprisingly, November is probably not the best month to ship a horse north. Deep had never been out of Marseille, and let’s just say he found the climate in Maisons-Laffitte not exactly to his liking. First there was colic (he must have been bedded on shavings down south, because heĀ  ate most of his straw bed every night here, hence the colic; he’s now on shavings so THAT problem is solved). Then he got sick. He went out in the rain one day and the next day he was down (literally, laying there groaning like a typical case of man-flu) with a fever and a cough. It lasted four days and then left almost as quick as it came. But then it came back. Twice. He seems to be well now, so let’s hope for the best on Friday. He’ll be a little short of work, and the company will be a bit tougher than he usually faces. But he certainly seems to have the morale and his last work went nicely, so let’s hope.

Satwa Sunrise, meanwhile, might get another run on Monday. We have her in a claimer and I’ll know in two days whether she is eliminated or not. She bounced back very well from her last race and had a gallop yesterday (with Deep).

And in the bad luck department (is this year over yet?) Magical Flower was feeling so good after her work Monday that she had a good roll, got up with a squeal and a buck, kicked the wall – and broke her foot. She is feeling mighty stupid and sorry for herself just now, and I’m feeling even worse, because she was on our list to go to Cagnes and seemed to be really working well. She has a non-displaced fracture of the coffin bone in her near hind foot, so no surgery is necessary and the prognosis is very good, but it means three or four months of box rest before she can resume training. She got her orthopedic glue-on shoe today, and I’m hoping that in a month, she’ll be well enough to transport out to the country for convalescence.

 

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