The planned return to action for your All-Weather flat horse, Conservative, has unfortunately been put on hold after the gelding failed to please Scott in his most recent piece of work. The 3-year-old had been scheduled to run at Wolverhampton on Monday 5th December, but we'll wait to hear back from Scott to see what the next steps are after we carry out some tests on the gelding.

“It’s a shame as Conservative had been doing everything right as we stepped his work up in readiness for his first run for the Coral Racing Club. Unfortunately he just didn’t please us when we worked him on Saturday. Dale Swift (jockey) rode him and said he just didn’t finish the work as strongly as he normally would, and he just didn’t seem well in himself afterwards.

We checked him immediately after the work but no obvious physical issues were apparent, so the next step is to get his blood tested, and see if the results of those shed any light on what might be wrong. We’ll continue to monitor his wellbeing each day, is he eating his food, for example, because as with humans, loss of appetite can be a sign a horse is not right.

In the meantime that does mean Monday’s run is off the table, as we need everything to be 100% right with a horse before we run them, but hopefully we’ll know more soon, and he will get over whatever was affecting him. All being well, his first run for the Coral Racing Club won’t be too far away.”

Scott Dixon