Retirement plans undecided

Press, 2 June 1989, Page 33

Retirement plans undecided

NZPA Sydney The connections of Australia and New Zealand’s richest stakes earner, Poetic Prince (racing in Australia as Our Poetic Prince), were still undecided yesterday about whether the entire will have one final race after his disappointing run in the Fourex Cup at Doomben on Wednesday. Poetic Prince finished eleventh in the Group One event won by Victorian

galloper Abstraction. Although the New Zealand champion suffered some interference entering the home straight, his jockey, Noel Harris, and trainer, John Wheeler, said the entire did not show his usual zip. Wheeler has paid the acceptance fee for Poetic Prince to start in the weight-for-age P. J. O’Shea Stakes (2400 m at Eagle Farm tomorrow. “We are just deliberat-

ing at the present time whether he’ll actually run in it. He’s come through yesterday’s race pretty well and we are quite happy with him,” the New Plymouth trainer said. “His run yesterday was not one of his best, even though he was four or five wide all the way and was quite badly hampered coming into the straight. “All the same, he didn’t pick himself up quick as he should have and went

to the line a bit tired." Wheeler said if Poetic Prince started in the O’Shea Stakes, it would definitely be his last race — however he fared. Wheeler had hoped that Poetic Prince would end his racing career on a winning note before going to stud in Victoria. But, in spite of his outstanding successes in New Zealand, Sydney and Melbourne, he is still a maiden on Brisbane tracks.