OVERCOMING THE ODDS. THE INCREDIBLE BACK STORY OF VEGA ONE'S RETURN TO RACING

By Graham Potter | Thursday, April 28, 2022

How good is it to have Vega One, who was last seen action in last year’s Stradbroke Handicap, lining up to face the starter at Eagle Farm on Saturday!

The Tony Gollan trained gelding provided arguably the most exhilarating moment of last year’s Queensland Winter Carnival when he won the Group 1 Kingsford-Smith Cup under the ride of the carnival from Jamie Kah, after weaving his way through traffic at speed, where narrow margins applied … after managing to skirt dead-ends and after flying late when it seemed that he had got into the clear too late to hope for anything more than a minor placing.

It was thrilling stuff.

Vega One would go on to run second to Tofane in the Group 1 Stradbroke in his next start, a result which franked his superior level of ability … but to say that all has not been well with Vega One since that Stradbroke outing would be something of an understatement.

“After the Stradbroke last year, as he was cooling down, we noticed that he had been galloped on from behind, that’s why he raced so fierce in the run,” said Gollan, taking up the story.

“It wasn’t the worst one I’d seen, but it was deep enough. Obviously, the vet at the track inspected him. We then made the decision that, because it was deep enough, we would get him straight to the vets at Gatton.

“When he got there, they flushed it clean and put him on anti-biotics. Everything was going quite well but, all of a sudden, about five to seven days afterwards, things took a bit of a turn for the worse.

“He had a bug in there. That’s what you risk … an infection. It had got into the tendon sheath, and it was resistant to the anti-biotics that he was on. The bug basically started eating the leg, so they had to get a culture of it and find an anti-body that would kill this bug and stop the infection which they did.

“It was a pretty hairy situation. It was touch and go whether he would live there for a while … it was getting that bad.

“And then, of course, there was the big process of him healing. We basically had to give him all the time he needed to let this big, ugly leg heal.

“I was always confident … confident-ish … that the ligaments weren’t affected … and they weren’t, so it was very lucky.

“So, we went through a long period of getting the leg to heal, rehab and making sure that when we started to move with him all of that scar tissue would start to stretch and move properly. We would do a little bit with him, then back off. Then do a little bit and back off etc.

“There were a lot of good people involved in getting him back and then, when he was ready, we had a pretty tight timeline to get him ready for the winter, but he is coming to hand beautifully.

“He’s had one trial where he was a touch fresh. He was due to jump out again last Tuesday, but they were washed out. He had a course proper gallop and his recovery was phenomenal.

“So, here we are embarking on another, hopefully, third-time lucky Stradbroke preparation.

“It will be a bit harder in the Stradbroke now because of his rating … he is higher rated … but if we could go back-to-back in the Kingsford-Smith Cup that would be great.

“Really, we are just happy to see the horse back safe and sound.

“He is enjoying himself. He is enjoying being back in the stable. He is enjoying his work. He is a very happy, healthy, sound racehorse at the moment and he is a pleasure to train. He really has matured into a lovely animal.

“For a horse that was maybe going to die at one stage, to get him back to the races is pretty special!

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