Foot Problems No longer Hamper Torio’s Quest

It’s been a hard road for the Brett Partelle camp in trying to get boom sprinter / miler Torio’s Quest back to full health.

The horse has an electric turn of foot at his peak but it’s those feet that have been giving him all sorts of grief  over the past few months.

Torio’s Quest came into the spring carnival as one to follow and he showed his ability when second in the Theo Marks Stakes.

He was backed heavily at his next start but in incredible scenes he threw jockey Hugh Bowman and escaped onto the track, through a fence and ended up in the car park.

They persisted with him down to Melbourne but things only got worse eventually ending a hugely disappointing campaign.

“We thought we had him right but getting him to Melbourne we had issues…abscess in his foot, big one,” he said.

In fact so big was the problem that at one stage his hoof was virtually split into two.

“We had to insert 12 screws with a plate to hold that together…it was a pretty serious problem that we had,” he said.

Now though Partelle feels things are on the mend and he’s rating him as the fittest he’s been for a long time.

“It’s been a trying time with him but I can assure you he’s back to where he was,” he said.

“He’s done a mountain of work on the water walker.

“He’s feet probably look the best they’ve ever looked in his whole career.

“We’ve actually gone up a size in shoes.”

Torio’s Quest is still a month away from a return to racing but given his solid first up record expect him to be good to go from the start.

“He’s pencilled in to trial on the 20th, he virtually hasn’t had much of a saddle on his back (at this stage),” he said.

“He’s probably swimming for four minutes a  day which is a fair swim for a galloper.”

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