Pete called this morning with the news – they had gone out with Winker and he was moving ‘like an old man’, a bit hunched and sluggish. The vet had indicated that this was a minor problem, but it wasn’t going to stand up to training in the short term and Pete wanted to back off. No-one disagreed. We have said his participation is ‘highly unlikely’ – everything indicates that he won’t get there but we don’t want to rule it out entirely.
I’m not as gutted as I thought I’d be. There were far worse possibilities – this is a minor setback, he’ll be over it in a short time period and it doesn’t look progressive or in any way related to the knee problem that kept him out of the Middle Park last year.