Atlantic Jewel will be given until the end of October to prove her body can stand up to another racing campaign.
The unbeaten Mark Kavanagh-trained mare and early Cox Plate favourite suffered a tendon injury last week which put an end to her spring.
Atlantic Jewel winning the Group 1 All Aged Stakes - Photo by Steve Hart
There was speculation she may have run her last race but Michael Kirwin, speaking on behalf of majority owners Coolmore Stud, indicated any such reports were premature.
Scans of her injury, which weresent overseas to be assessed, confirmed that while the issue was serious it was not necessarily career-ending.
“We are going to put her on a rehabilitation regime and reassess her at the end of October,” Kirwin said on Sydney’s Sky Sports radio on Wednesday.
“The end of October will tell us exactly where we are. If it hasn’t healed as well as we would have expected then we will possibly retire her.
“If it is heading in the right direction and there’s a chance she will be okay with it then we’ll continue.”
Atlantic Jewel has won all of her seven starts, the most recent in the Group One All Aged Stakes at Randwick during the autumn carnival.
Kirwin said her injury would preclude her from racing next autumn but he hoped she could be back in the spring of 2013.
Coolmore also welcomed its northern hemisphere shuttle stallions back to the Hunter Valley on Wednesday, along with debutant sire So You Think.
“So You Think has just arrived safely at Coolmore Australia to begin his stud career,” Coolmore tweeted.
Coolmore bought a majority stake in So You Think during his stellar spring in 2010 when he won his second Cox Plate under Bart Cummings.
Transferred to Aidan O’Brien in Ireland, he won another five Group One races in Europe, including his swansong in the Prince Of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot in June.
He will stand for a service fee of $66,000 in his initial season.
