Heaven Rocks in doubt for NZ Cup

One-time New Zealand Cup favourite Heaven Rocks is in severe doubt for Tuesday’s great race at Addington.

The dual Jewels winner has not impressed trainers Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen with some flat trackwork this week and they suspect he may be coming down with a virus.

He will have blood tests today and if a virus is confirmed he would miss Tuesday’s $800,000 race, with a potential back-up option of the NZ Free-For-All on Friday.

While it seems hard to believe now with Lazarus the $1.30 TAB favourite, Heaven Rocks actually replaced his stablemate briefly at the head of the NZ Cup market last month before their comeback race saw Lazarus win and Heaven Rocks perform poorly.

Since then he has been a decent third to Lazarus in the Flying Stakes at Ashburton and an impressive winner at Addington eight days ago to sit as the clear second favourite for the Cup at $6. If Heaven Rocks is withdrawn Lazarus could remarkably be as short as $1.20 with the TAB book before Tuesday.

He won’t be the only major scratching from a group one next week as Habibti Ivy has been confirmed as a non-starter in the $300,000 Dominion next Friday.

She has been troubled by a heel complaint and trainer Paul Nairn will now focus on the feature trots over the northern summer with her.

And open class pacers Locharburn and Waikiki Beach have been pulled out of the junior free-for-all on Tuesday, with Waikiki Beach suffering tying up problems after the Cup trial on Wednesday.

Multiple group one winner Sheemon, who only returned to racing at Kaikoura 12 days ago, is also out of the Trot Free-For-All on Tuesday, suggesting he will also miss the Dominion.