Gold Dust sparkles again after lucky Reefton escape

Sunday Star Times

WHEN WEST Coast vet Julian Shorten first laid eyes on Gold Dust, she was standing on the side of a road, one leg so badly injured he described it as akin to a horror movie.

On Tuesday the horror flick will turn into a feelgood tearjerker when the mare makes an unlikely comeback at the Motukarara trials.

And Shorten, one of the heroes of her remarkable recovery, will be willing her on as a new part-owner, excited at the prospect of seeing her race again.

Gold Dust's career looked to be over before it had barely begun last January when, after winning a race at Reefton, she veered wildly outwards, smashed through a gate into the car park, galloped out onto the main road, stampeded through Reefton township and down State Highway 7.

Shorten led a search party for the mare and, following the prompts from startled pedestrians, he eventually caught up with her 3km away, halfway to Blacks Point, in such a sorry state fears were held she would never race again.

With one knee badly cut and the skin on one of her forelegs peeled right down, Shorten had to sedate the animal before she could be transported home.

Shorten's advice to Cambridge owner Ian Crozier was more promising a couple of days later when, after stitching the skin back in place, he gave her "half a chance" of making a full recovery.

Crozier, however, asked Shorten to find Gold Dust a good home, saying he was so old "he'd be pushing up daisies by the time she was able to race again."

For the first couple of weeks, Gold Dust was confined to a box, where Shorten controlled her pain with drugs – she was also nursing sore ribs from smashing against the outside running rail gate.

Shorten admits his hopes dived when he changed her bandages for the first time, finding thickening of her leg.

But his fears that her joints, tendons or bones might succumb to infection came to nothing and "fed truckloads" by local trainer Sally Collis, Gold Dust gradually started to pick up. "I changed her bandages every seven to ten days and Sally looked after her, doing all the grooming and day-to-day stuff.

"It took about six months before the wounds all healed and while there was still a bit of swelling, that's all gone since she's been back in work."

Put into training at the end of winter, with Sally and Geoff Collis, Gold Dust continued to thrive and Shorten says, apart from some leg scarring, you'd hardly know what the mare had been through now. "When I phoned Ian Crozier to let him know, he was tickled pink," Shorten said.

When Gold Dust goes to the races again it will be in the name of Shorten, his partner Gail Nordstrom and the Collises, a reward for the hundreds of hours they all put into the mare.

And Shorten, impressed by the attitude Gold Dust showed during her ordeal, is hoping it transfers to the racetrack.

He's had an interest in only one horse before, who never won a race, but in Gold Dust he has an improver, who's won two of only 13 starts.

And when she galloped at Reefton last week, in a trial on the newly revamped circuit, she certainly looked the goods.

In a bid to prevent a repetition of January's incident, where four horses were carted off the track with Gold Dust and three riders were unseated, the winning post has been moved 10 metres back into the home straight.

The move follows recommendations by stipendiary steward Stewart Ching on how safety could be improved on the very tight D-shaped holiday track.

Ching believed the positioning of the finish, 20 or 30 metres into the corner, was partly to blame for the melee which saw Renee Fraser, Jan Cameron and Ashlee Mundy lucky to escape serious injury.

The starting point for 2000-metre races has also been widened. Gold Dust, predictably, will be set for the local meeting again on January 6 when Shorten will be hoping the only stampede will be for the bar – after she wins again.