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Laurie Laxon’s grand warrior Huka Falls has fought his last battle at Kranji and will now head to New Zealand where a new career awaits him.
The Align seven-year-old last ran in the Kranji Stakes A race over 1200m last Sunday, running out of the placings for Glen Boss behind the dead-heating pair of Super Winner and Laser Storm, but unfortunately bled upon pulling up.
Nothing in the lead-up to the race had suggested his farewell race was about to come as the bold sprinter did score a nice barrier trial win the week before, a sign he might be on the upswing again after a few ordinary runs. Just a few weeks earlier, Laxon even thought he was good enough to be invited to the inaugural 700 million won Group 1 Keeneland Korea Sprint (1200m) at Seoul on September 11.
But it was not to be as he did not make the cut, and the fallback plan came a cropper, too. After the bleeding setback, the Singapore multiple champion trainer decided there and then that one of his most prolific moneyspinners did not owe him anything anymore and fully deserved to retire from racing.
After discussing with part-owner Brent Gillovic, it was agreed the Polytrack specialist would head back to his Highview Stud in Hamilton, before eventually being reschooled into a dressage horse.
“Unfortunately, Huka bled last Sunday. He got interfered with coming off the back and that probably knocked the stuffing out of him,” said Laxon.
“He was banned for three months, but we decided to retire him and he will be on the next plane to New Zealand on the 28th October. He will return to Highview Stud where he was born. Brent owns 25% share in him.
“He will let down there and then he will go for a showjumping and eventing career. He is a beautiful upstanding horse and that will be a lovely second career for him.
“Aura d’Oro (raced by Oscar Racing and winless in five starts) will join him on that plane. She is Better Than Ever’s half-sister and will go there to become a broodmare.”
Racing in the Silver Fern Racing colours, Huka Falls bows out with a laudable record of 16 wins, 14 of which have come on Polytrack, two seconds and eight thirds from 51 starts for stakes earnings in excess of $1.1 million. All his career, he has never ventured beyond 1200m except once when he raced over 1400m in the one-off Jubilee Stakes in 2012 at his third start, and was well beaten.
While the hulking chestnut contested a few feature races in his four-year-long racing career, he was unable to win any, leading to the general impression he was probably a few notches below the elite, but somehow always bounced back when dropped back in easier company over his pet Polytrack surface.
Among those who sat on him, four-time Singapore champion jockey Joao Moreira enjoyed the most successful partnership, having ridden him to nine of his 16 wins. Danny Beasley, Corey Brown and Manoel Nunes rode him to one win apiece while Michael Rodd struck a solid affinity with him towards the tailend of his career, scoring at his last four wins.
Interestingly, two of those wins kickstarted the Australian’s campaigns in 2015 and 2016, prompting him to call Huka Falls on both occasions an “old marvel”.