As excited as Matt Cumani was about Kingofwallstreet coming out of his three-year-old spring campaign, he knows whatever he now achieves on the racetrack might be considered a bonus.
The four-year-old is on the cusp of a return to the races, with this Saturday’s 2000-metre open-age handicap at Flemington shaping as his first start since his fourth placing in the 2024 Victoria Derby.
Kingofwallstreet emerged from the Derby unscathed, only to suffer a tendon injury in the early stages of his following preparation.
Cumani knows no horse is immune from injury, but was surprised the diminutive son of Dundeel fell victim to a tendon issue, which left him wondering what might have been.
He also couldn’t help but ponder whether more could have been done to prevent it.
“As far as I can tell there’s no rhyme or reason to tendon injuries, we’ve had all sorts of horses do them on all sorts of different tracks and at all sorts of different stages, but it’s one of the things that frustrates me the most,” Cumani said.
“In racing, we know a lot about bone injury now, we’re very good at identifying it and spotting it.
“Of course, that’s because the industry as a whole, and Racing Victoria in particular, have done a fantastic job of putting money and research into it.
“We know it inside out, but because tendon injuries don’t tend to lead to catastrophic injuries on the track, less research has gone into it, so we know very little about it.
“You don’t know whether they do an injury because they take a bad step, or whether it’s an accumulation of damage over time, and as a result we don’t know the best way to rehab it.
“We have an idea through trial and error, but it’s one of the most frustrating injuries in my mind and one that takes a long time to heal from and I wish we could all, as an industry, put a bit more emphasis on understanding it.”
Cumani has therefore taken no risks with Kingofwallstreet, whose Derby effort at start No 4 followed a maiden win in the Group 3 Norman Robinson Stakes (2000m) at Caulfield.
The Ballarat horseman was determined to take a conservative approach with Kingofwallstreet’s rehabilitation and hopes that patience is rewarded.
“In my mind he needed 12 months off and when I say off, that means off from doing any serious work,” he said.
“The way we handle tendons now is actually to front-load a fair bit of work at the beginning of the healing process to try and encourage it to heal the right way and make sure the fibres align properly and it doesn’t heal in a tight knot.
“Then we give them time off once the healing process is well underway.
“At that point you can give them three months off, or five months or six months, and I feel that we had probably one crack at giving him a full recovery.
“Every step we’ve taken we’ve probably added another week onto the usual return to racing conditioning and I wanted to give him three trials because we’re likely to start off over 2000 metres.”
Kingofwallstreet reappeared in a 1000m jumpout at Camperdown on April 23, finishing 3-1/2 lengths fifth, before a 2-1/2-length fourth over the same trip at Ararat on May 12.
He rounded out preparations for his return with a more searching workout over 1200m at Horsham on May 28, when he finished strongly to be beaten a head by Pacific Jewel.
“His last trial was very good visually and although the horse that beat him is a benchmark 58 horse, he’s a sprinter and he had the advantage on us in the early stages and I really liked the way my boy was finishing off,” Cumani said.
Given the nature of Kingofwallstreet’s injury, Cumani is not committed to path beyond his first-up run but hopes the work he has done with him will ensure he can have a productive career for seasons to come.
“I’m trying to not get too excited and have low expectations,” Cumani said.
“I hope that he can just be a horse that, first of all, gets back to the races for us, which is the most important thing.
“If he can, then perhaps he’s a nice winter stayer and, you never know, he could go on and maybe be even better than that.”
The 2000m benchmark 100 shapes as a highlight of Saturday’s Flemington card with Riverina Cups King Bianco Vilano, promising import Zahrann, Brayden Star, winter regular Bold Soul and Shockletz among Kingofwallstreet’s potential rivals.
