McCoull cooling heels after op

CHAMPION Tasmanian jockey Brendon McCoull could be out of the saddle until well into next season following knee surgery that was found to be worse than first thought.

McCoull had an arthroscopy on his right knee which was expected to be a basic clean-up around the joints, but the damage required more involved surgery.

“Once the surgeon went in, he found a significant tear in my right meniscus, which is the thing that provides the cushioning between your knee joints, and he found damage to the cartilage above the meniscus,” he said.

“At this stage everything seems to be healing as expected, but I’ll know more in a couple of weeks.”

“I’d like to think that I would be back riding trackwork early to midAugust and maybe back riding in races at the end of August or early September.”

McCoull, who has won 14 state jockeys’ premierships, says the hardest thing to handle is the frustration.

“This is not the worst injury a jockey can get but it leaves you sitting down and not able to do much, especially the first few weeks in recovery, and is frustrating when you are used to being active,” he said.

McCoull, whose life partner is Campania trainer Imogen Miller, has had a good season and was in contention to win his 15th jockeys’ premiership until his knee started to cause problems.

“I’ve had a good season and have mainly ridden for Adam Trinder, Bill Ryan and Imogen [Miller], and I’ve had success with all of them, but in particular Adam,” he said.

“I have picked up my association with Adam in the last 12 months and we had a great carnival of course my association with his top two-year-old Bello Beau both here and on the mainland was a highlight.”

McCoull, will end the season with 43 winners and 34 minor placings from 169 rides for a winning strike rate of over 25 per cent.

IT will be another early start for the Devonport gallops meeting on Sunday with the first scheduled to start at 11.15am.

And punters might be well served to have an interest in the first race that boasts a first starter by the name of Shim, who could not have more impressive in winning an 800m trial on the Spreyton track three weeks ago.

Shim, trained at Spreyton by Team Wells, showed blistering early speed to lead and when the rider gave the two-year-old filly a squeeze 300m out, she extended her lead and was untroubled to score by almost five lengths, running her last 600m in 35.18 seconds.

The filly is by Wordsmith from the Tough Speed mare Constant Velocity, who had only 16 starts for three wins and as many minor placings.

Rebel Factor also showed up at the Devonport trials three weeks ago, defeating the highly rated Need To Be Unique and the Team Wellstrained mare will tackle a benchmark 68 handicap over 1009m (race eight).

Siggy Carr has picked up the rides aboard Shim and Rebel Factor.