Arrowfield Stud were dealt a character building blow this morning with news their star filly Autumn Glow would be scratched from the Group I ATC Flight Stakes for which she was a short priced favourite, but it’s not all bad news for John Messara and his team.
News Ltd journalist Ray Thomas revealed the news earlier today.
"Chris rang to tell me the news – it's devastating,'' Messara told Thomas.
"Autumn Glow has a minor bone chip in her knee that will need surgery and she will be out for two months.
"You couldn't believe something like this would happen so close to her ‘Grand Final'.
"She had worked well earlier this week and everything seemed to be going smoothly for the Flight Stakes.
"But the bottom line is that Autumn Glow will be fine and hopefully back bigger and better in autumn. What do they say? ‘That's racing!'.''
Anybody that has seen the Winx movie will know now that she too had a bone chip operation early in her career and it ended up doing her no harm at all in the grand scheme of things, so there can be every reason to be confident Autumn Glow will return to claim that Group I win the $1.8million Inglis Easter sale-topper so richly deserves.
Arrowfield sires are also well represented in the Flight Stakes field as it stands after scratchings with three of the six runners by their stallions with Lady Sheandoah (Snitzel) sharing favouritism with Snow in May (The Autumn Sun) and Lazzura (Snitzel) the third pick.
Both stablemates of Autumn Glow at the Waller stable, Lady Shenandoah and Lazzura were also bred and sold by Arrowfield, so the race may yet deliver Group I success for the iconic Hunter Valley nursery.
