The more observant of you may have noticed that Freedom to Dream is declared to run at Galway tomorrow; this would be his return from a 666 day absence which, to put it mildly, is a ‘devil of a long time!’
However, expectations should be muted. The trip is too short, the course too sharp, the ground may not be soft enough over the shorter trip and he is only as fit as we can get him at home. That being said, it is great to have him back and ready to go; if he finished placed, we would be very happy as we know there will be lot of improvement when conditions better suit.
He did run in a schooling hurdle at Tipperary a couple of weeks and, despite taking a fairly wide route, managed to finish second. It was Division Three though so was not up against the supposedly better horses. I have to say he looked magnificent when he was parading before the school.
We have been very patient with him, but it seems to be paying off and we are excited about the rest of the season. He will be ridden by Denis O’Regan tomorrow as Kevin (and Peter) will be over in Cheltenham with Born Patriot.
It’s taken a while to get the weight off him; he’s a big horse and has really filled out since his last run when he was just a frame of a horse. He’s weighing in at 535kgs now (he lost 10 kgs when he ran in his schooling hurdle) and is getting closer to his racing weight. That was the first time he had been on grass and there’s no doubt that speeds up the fitness process much quicker than on the all weather gallops at home or the Curragh.
He’s the forgotten horse tomorrow as he’s generally available at 10/1. That may be fair for tomorrow, but I doubt he will be that price next time if he shows he retains his ability. That’s always the concern after a leg injury “will he come back?” Well, he never had the chance to show what he could do before so, I guess, we’ll never know. What I do know is Peter is excited about him and who would argue with a Grade One, Cheltenham winning trainer?
Let me provide a quick update on Suprise Package: as you know he was pulled up at Limerick with a what turned out to be a fibrillating heart. It took until the following morning for the heart to regulate itself and then we took him off to the vets. Everything seemed fine but it was decided to put him on a treadmill and gradually bring the speed up to a normal racing pace. Not surprisingly, some horses take to it straightaway but others need a little more time; he was in the middle. I don’t like running at speed on a treadmill myself so how horses cope with four spindly legs I have no idea; I had visions of him falling off the back. Anyway, they fully exhausted him and there were absolutely no issues with his heart which suggests it might be a psychological thing versus physical.
Peter and I started speculating about what would cause any anxiety. As you know, Bay of Freedom had his own anxiety issues, but they manifested in ulcers; this is different. It could possibly be the travelling as, when you look back, his best performances have been close to home (Fairyhouse and, in particular, Punchestown which is only 30 minutes down the road); compare that to his last three runs at Galway, Killarney and Limerick. We might stick him in a horsebox when Peter has a runner at a more distant track and see how he is when he gets to the course.
The anxiety notion took a further twist a couple of days later. Surprise Package, now back in the yard, was randomly selected to be ‘looked at’ by Siobhan, a Reiki practitioner. Siobhan, completely unaware of what horse she was working on or any background, quickly diagnosed significant anxiety and then delivered the ‘coup de grace’: he had been experiencing this anxiety for around nine months. It didn’t take us long to work out that this coincided with when he arrived in the yard.
In some ways it doesn’t make sense given how well he won at Punchestown four months later but it did start me wondering what could be different from his routine when he was down in Wexford: did he have a companion down there (sheep, horse, cow) who he was missing? Many years ago Remittance Man (Champion Chase winner) would go crazy if he was separated from Nobby the Sheep; was Surprise Package best friends with Clarissa the Cow? It makes you wonder.
I should also take this chance to apologise to the connections of Off Your Rocco as I said it was a ‘silly name’ in my last blog. That was uncalled for and, in fairness, it actually makes sense based on the breeding. He is out of Shirocco and TakeYourCapOff so the owners took parts of each horse to come up with Off Your Rocco.
Now if they had taken the other parts and named him Shitake Cap then that would have truly been a silly name!!
Back to Siobhan: we are Zooming next Wednesday and I will know a lot more after that. Apparently, she also offers Distance (remote) Reiki which can also be effective (just go with me here!). She suggested to Ber that she could ‘treat’ Suprise Package remotely. No idea how that works but it is strange and intriguing enough for me to find out more. In fact, Kim and I are thinking about using her ourselves because have both been feeling a little ‘burnt out’ recently.
More to come……………..