Northern trip doubtful for Rock Crystal

Press, 7 May 1987, Page 47

Northern trip doubtful for Rock Crystal

Special correspondent Auckland Rock Crystal’s planned trip to the North Island for the Aber Impco Waikato Steeples and Nescafe Great Northern Steeples has been, almost certainly, scrapped. The grey’s fine effort for the second in the THC Fiordland Steeples at the Winton meeting on Monday took its toll. “I am 99.9 per cent sure at this stage that the Waikato and Great Northern Steeples are out,” said part-owner and trainer, Hec Anderton. “It will take some miracle for him to come right in time.” Rock Crystal was to have left for Hamilton next Wednesday with his Wingatui rival, Lord Venture. His space will be taken by Cliff ReeseJones’s promising ’chaser, Paddle.

“I am confident that he is not finished as a racing proposition,” Anderton said of Rock Crystal’s latest setback. "Bill Hillis, Arthur Didham and Sam Shaw have had a look at him with me since he raced on Monday and they maintain, too, that he could be all right in a few days.” Rock Crystal’s problem, in his near foreleg, will be able to be pinpointed more accurately, when the inflammation subsides. At this stage, it seems Rock Crystal may have jarred the troubled joint Rock Crystal’s absence from the Nescafe Great Northern Steeples will rob the Auckland Racing Club’s feature of great interest. His epic clash with Lord Venture last year was acclaimed as one of the most thrilling encounters at Ellerslie in recent years.