While the major carnivals in Melbourne and Sydney begin winding down, trainer Matthew Smith is already looking ahead to the next wave of feature racing.
The Warwick Farm horseman is eager to reignite the campaign of his stable star Headwall, who is nearing the end of a lengthy rehabilitation following the injury that abruptly halted his spring preparation after just one outing.
The six-year-old had opened his campaign in brilliant fashion, defeating Lady Shenandoah in the $1 million Group 3 Concorde Stakes, only to be diagnosed shortly after with a pastern injury.
The setback forced him to miss an array of lucrative sprint options on the east coast, including the $20 million The Everest, a blow Smith likened to losing a star footballer.
“It’s like when you’ve got ‘Buddy’ Franklin kicking goals and he does a knee, that’s what it’s like for us,” Smith lamented.
“You lose your best player on the team, your best earner, it’s tricky.
He is still spelling for another month then he’ll come in and away we’ll go.”
Smith is keen to see his stable weapon back in action but insists he won’t rush the sprinter until he is completely ready, pointing out that attractive autumn opportunities extend well into April.
Headwall enjoyed a strong 2024 earlier in the year, finishing a luckless fourth in the Oakleigh Plate, before running second to Joliestar in the Newmarket Handicap.
He continued his elite-level consistency with a third in the T J Smith Stakes and another runner-up finish in the $5 million The Quokka, a race that again sits firmly on Smith’s radar.
“It would probably be late autumn, he might head to The Quokka again,” Smith said.
“(We might) go back and try to get that on the board…but we will be happy just to get him back sound, get a couple of runs into him and see what happens.
He’s a gun, the horse, if we can get him back.”
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