Princess back for next dip
Trainer hopes sprinter keeps feet dry after canal swim went viral
It was one of the most weird incidents in racing when Princess Lunar broke loose from the Gold Coast track and went swimming with the bull sharks in a nearby canal.
The mare was saved by starter Kenny Watson, who disrobed and swam after her, creating headlines as the vision of the incident went viral.
A year on, Princess Lunar will front at the Ipswich races on Saturday where, thankfully, there are no canals nearby.
Trainer Scott Morrisey can now see the funny side of his mare’s antics – but says it left him simply with a red face.
“People were saying it could be good publicity because I could get more horses to train out of it,” Morrisey said.
“But one thing is for sure and that is that I didn’t get any more horses to train out of it.
“Looking back now, it was a bit funny but it was also a little bit embarrassing.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.
“She is a pretty hot and lively filly but she had never given any indication she would do something as silly as that.”
Dumping jockey Tegan Harrison on The Wave day last year, Princess Lunar crashed through a fence and went for a maritime adventure.
The great news was the mare was returned unharmed after her dip, thanks largely to the efforts of Watson who also emerged unhurt.
Morrisey now reckons he can pinpoint the moment everything went wrong.
“I told Tegan to just give the horse a good canter around and keep moving behind the gates, as she had been missing the kick,” he said.
“What happened, the horse in front of her was going slowly, when they were leading it out. If we could have kept our mare moving at the speed she wanted, nothing would have happened.
“But because we had to slow her down to a speed that she wasn’t happy with, she just threw her toys out of the cot.
“Kenny had already dived in by the time I got to the canal and he and the other staff did a fantastic job.”
So a year on, what are the chances of Princess Lunar being on her best behaviour and winning a Class 4 dash over 800m on Saturday?
She has not won since scoring on the Gold Coast synthetic track in February, a month after her canal swim, but Morrisey fancies her prospects in a race where she will only face five rivals.
“She’s going really good at the moment, she should have probably won first run back this campaign,” he said.
“She will be hard to beat on Saturday. She is just a really highly strung mare who takes a lot of work
“When she is good, she is good. When she is bad, she is very bad.”