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Dancer's Daughter sidelined by injury
By Michael Clower12.05PM 19 MAR 2009
SOUTH AFRICA'S champion racemare Dancer's Daughter has suffered a splint bone injury and will miss both the Horse Chestnut Stakes at Turffontein on April 4 and the Champions Challenge there three weeks later.
Trainer Justin Snaith said on Thursday: "She knocked a splint bone on her near-fore when we worked her last Wednesday. We have been monitoring it ever since and we have now made a decision on her future plans.
"The reason that it took us so long is that she is 100 per cent sound. But we don't want to take any chances with her and so the Johannesburg campaignis off.
"We really only took her to Jo'burg to get her acclimatised and to do something with her in the Cape off-season, so everything there was a bonus.
"We feel it's not worth pushing her through the rest of the Jo'burg season, then through the Durban season, before maybe having a go at the Breeder's Cup Distaff
so we are going to save her for the Durban July."
The British-bred mare dead-heated with Pocket Power in last year's Durban July and last month she defied the sceptics, who thought she would not be able to cope with Turffontein's 5,700 feet after being trained at sea level, by winning the Empress Club Stakes in impressive style.