The much-travelled Jetwings has made his way back to Gerald Ryan‘s stable via Hong Kong and New Zealand with the trainer hoping to resurrect his career in Sydney.
Ryan will decide after the gelding gallops on Tuesday morning whether he runs at Randwick on Saturday or is held over for another week.
The trainer is hoping he can make a successful return like the recently retired Washington Heights who won three races including the Group Two Shannon Stakes when he returned from Hong Kong last year.
Unlike Washington Heights, Jetwings has had to take the long way home because of Australian quarantine protocols introduced in 2017 over the Conghua Training Centre in China.
Because of the movement of horses between the centre and Hong Kong, Australian officials are not satisfied with the quarantine arrangements and horses returning from Hong Kong have to spend six months in another country, mainly New Zealand, before they can come back across the Tasman.
“Jetwings won a couple of races in Hong Kong then came back here” Ryan said.
“He then went back to Hong Kong and won again but this time he couldn’t come straight back so he went to New Zealand.
“He had a couple of starts there but hated the wet tracks so now the six months is up he is back in Sydney.
“I’ll wait and see how he gallops in the morning before I decide whether to run him in the Benchmark 80 over 1000 metres on Saturday or not.
“There is a similar race the following week so I will see how he is.”
Trained by Richard Gibson in Hong Kong, Jetwings was unplaced in two starts for Lance O’Sullivan and Andrew Scott on wet tracks in New Zealand.
Ryan will run Nuke in the Rosebud Prelude (1000m) at Randwick hoping to get another win from the gelding before the end of his two-year-old season.
Nuke broke his maiden at his third start in an 1110m-race at Dubbo on June 15.
“I was going to run him at Canterbury a couple of weeks ago but he got a temperature,” Ryan said.
“He’s fine now so we’ll try to get him a city win before the end of the season.”
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