For the second year in succession, spring plans haven’t gone to plan for high-class galloper Linebacker, but his trainers remain adamant he will return bigger and better in the autumn.
The Randwick Guineas winner was being prepared for a tilt at the Epsom Handicap – Golden Eagle double but when a minor injury setback ruled him out of the former, trainers John O’Shea and Tom Charlton found themselves on the backfoot.
While Linebacker showed his class to land a consolation win in the Silver Eagle (1300m), his rejigged lead-up to the Golden Eagle (1500m) proved costly and he battled to the line for seventh behind star mare Autumn Glow.
“It ended up being a testing 1500 and the preparation we were dealt as a result of the setback didn’t set him up well for that. We had wanted to come into it off the mile,” Charlton said.
“It was a messy race, tricky circumstances in the sense of the ground being quite choppy on the day.
“He got further back than we would have liked to see and everything that could go wrong did and then he got shut out of a gap up the straight.”
It followed a forgettable spring 12 months earlier when the then-colt, who had been Group 1-placed at two, turned in a couple of inglorious performances that resulted in him being gelded.
The procedure had the desired effect and Linebacker returned in the autumn to capture the Randwick Guineas and finish a luckless eighth in the Doncaster Mile (1600m), a race again likely to be on his carnival radar next year.
“He will go for a break now and come back in the autumn. I’m confident he can be a pretty good horse for us,” Charlton said.
“Maybe a Canterbury Stakes, a George Ryder (Stakes), Doncaster and then we will learn what his best distance might be.”
