STAR three-year-old pacer Resurgent Spirit has been sidelined with a leg injury but connections are hoping he will be ready to contest a heat of the Globe Derby Stakes in Launceston on Friday week.
Resurgent Spirit’s trainer Roger Whitmore said the horse had been kicked in the knee and was forced to the sidelines soon after he won at Mowbray on April 20.
“It was the same knee that he has been brushing a bit in his races and it was quite swollen,” Whitemore said.
“It started to come good after 10 days off.”
“There is still a bit of swelling in the leg but there is no ligament damage,” he said.
The gelding has returned to his normal training regime but due to a change in shoeing the horse no longer brushes his knee.
“He might be a bit underdone for a heat of the Globe Derby but we have another 16 days to get him right for the final,” the trainer said.
At one stage Whitmore was confident the horse would be heading to Victoria to contest the Breeders Crown series but the injury setback could curtail those plans.
“If everything goes well, we’ll run him in a heat (Breeders Crown) here (In Tasmania) and then play it by ear,” he said.
Resurgent Spirit was unbeaten as a two-year-old and he became the first horse to win his first 12 starts and at his subsequent outing he equalled Halwes’ record of the most number of consecutive wins by a pacer in the history of Tasmanian harness racing.
He suffered his first and only loss in the Tasmanian Derby in early April.