November 1 - After travelling thousands of miles from England to compete in Australia's biggest and most prestigious race, the 2008 Melbourne Cup on Tuesday next week, one of the race favorites - Yellowstone - may not be cleared to run by a Racing Victoria Limited (RVL) veterinarian.

Yellowstone's trainer - Australian-born Jane Chapple-Hyam - is reportedly furious that RVL vet Paul O'Callaghan has ordered an inspection of Yellowstone today, as she and jockey John Egan are certain that the five-year-old gelding has recovered from bruising he suffered earlier in the week.

It seems that Yellowstone sustained some bruising on his upper rump which kept him off training for one day. After Egan took the gelding for a canter on Thursday and a trot on Friday, both he and Chapple-Hyam deemed him to be more than fit and ready for next week's coveted Melbourne Cup.

However, Paul O'Callaghan was not so sure after watching Yellowstone's workouts, describing the gelding's action as 'choppy'. As such he ordered the inspection, to the obvious irritation of Chapple-Hyam who was quoted as saying: 'I don't need this and Yellowstone doesn't need it. He's sound.'

The highly-respected trainer went on to say that Egan was very happy with Yellowstone and couldn't fault him during his either of his recent workouts, whose opinion she obviously values and trusts given that he's the jockey who rides Yellowstone both in his track work and in all of his races.

As if trying to get his own back on RVL officials, Egan publically declared the Sandown track to be unfit for horses to gallop on Friday, despite the fact that many other top jockeys - including internationally renowned champion jockey, Johnny Murtagh - described the track as 'perfect'.

Despite her disagreement with the RVL officials, Chapple-Hyam is expected to take Yellowstone to Flemington today where he will work on the synthetic Viscoride track and afterwards be subjected to an inspection by RVL vets, who will then decide if he fit enough to run in the Melbourne Cup.

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2011/12/09 12:48:43 AM