Hong Kong's champion miler Able Friend (Aus) (Shamardal) is recuperating well from a tendon injury in Australia and could target that country's G1 Emirates S. in November as a comeback, trainer John Moore told Racing.com. The 6-year-old gelding, the winner of four Group 1 races between December of 2014 and last May, was found to have suffered the injury after finishing third when attempting to defend his title in last year's G1 Longines Hong Kong Mile.
“As far as the rehab is going, he has made quite a recovery,” Moore told Racing.com. “[The vet team in Melbourne] got his feet in great shape, the MRI out of Ballarat Equine Centre is showing no inflammation anymore [and] the lesion looks as though it is healing up really well. I hope to have him back in work at the end of June, preferably at Werribee; hopefully Racing Victoria will allow me to, as it means that we don't have to do the two weeks' quarantine prior to coming back to Hong Kong.”
Moore said the idea of starting the chestnut in Australia is to test him on raceday before shipping him back to Hong Kong.
“If everything goes really well–and it looks as though it is at the present moment–I will be sitting down with [owner] Dr. Li and saying 'why don't we give him a run or two in Australia,' to make sure we have a sound horse on his hands that can come back here instead of bringing him straight back here, because if things go wrong we would have to go back to Australia,” Moore explained. “I'm hoping Dr. Li will listen to what I recommend, and if that is the case then Australia will see one of the world's great milers.”
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