Western Australia trainer Jim Taylor will have to rethink his spring carnival campaign for promising four-year-old Barakey after he was a late scratching from his first-up start at Belmont Park last Saturday.
Barakey, who Taylor has named as the next Hay List, took fright in the barrier stalls to a commotion caused by another horse.
“The horse beside him went off and bolted into the side of the gate,” Taylor said.
“(Barakey) got his flank caught momentarily in the back gate.”
The trainer said that they had never experienced any unruly behaviour in the barrier stalls from Barakey in the past.
“He’s always a very quiet horse in the barriers,” he said.
Taylor will now wait three weeks before running the Key Business gelding again in order to allow him to recover from his predominantly superficial injuries.
“He had skin off around his hip area and you could see he was favouring his near side,” Taylor said.
“He probably pulled a muscle or something in the whole upper area.”
The incident means that Barakey is unlikely to qualify for the feature races during Perth’s summer racing carnival in November and December, including the Group 1 Winterbottom Stakes.
“We’ll probably miss the good races this carnival,” Taylor said.
The trainer will now continue to enter Barakey in benchmark handicap races, instead of chasing Black Type.
“I don’t want to rush him, he doesn’t turn four officially till December, he’s a late foal,” he said.
“You can chuck away three or four wins, it’s not in my make up to do that.
“I’ll just play it by ear now.”
Taylor is hoping the injuries will not lead Barakey to become fearful of the barriers at his next start.
“He seems all good now (but) you just hope it doesn’t do him (damage) mentally in the barriers,” he said.
“We’ve got barriers at home (so) we might take him down and give him some quiet time.
“Barriers are things you don’t want to annoy him too much with.
“We’ll just be careful next time.”
Barakey has won all three of his career starts and has earned just shy of $50,000 in prize money.
