Torio's Quest will continue towards the Cox Plate despite a bizarre incident at Rosehill
After causing a bizarre and almost catastrophic scene at Rosehill on the weekend there are no plans to shelve the Cox Plate aspirations of Torio’s Questfrom the Brett Partelle stable.
Torio’s Quest veered sideways pre-race and threw off jockey Hugh Bowman.
After that he escaped onto the track and ran through a track rail to end up in a car park right next to a main road.
Thankfully he was caught before he could do any further damage and apart from some small abrasions the horse is said to be injury free.
He was due to run in the Group 2 Shannon Stakes as a final lead up to the Melbourne spring carnival forcing Partelle to slightly change his plans.
He will now not leave for Melbourne until the weekend so he can squeeze in an exhibition gallop on Friday afternoon.
“We were going to go to Melbourne on Wednesday to run in next Saturday’s Toorak,” Partelle said.
“I was confident he would win last Saturday. He’d improved out of sight and was in prime order to bounce off that into the Toorak.
“At this stage we’ll stay here and give him an exhibition gallop on Friday to bring him forward to where I need him and probably head to Melbourne on the Sunday.”
It’s a real spanner in the works for a horse that was travelling brilliantly and tipped to make a big impact on the spring features.
Partelle hopes that will still be the case and is buoyed by the fact he’s worked well in the past after having multiple weeks in-between runs.
There is still a further problem though as the stable seeks a new jockey to pick up the ride.
The original plan was that he would win the Shannon Stakes thus forcing up his weight and allowing Hugh Bowman to take the reins.
Given that hasn’t happened they’ll need to revert to a lighter rider with their first pick also out of action.
Glen Boss was on standby but he’s expected to be out of action for at least a month after required metal plates to fix a broken shoulder.
Torio’s Quest finished the winter with a win in the Queensland Guineas and showed plenty of promise when resuming in the spring with a tough second first up in the Sebring Sprint.
