CHARLTON trainer Michael Gadsden admits a win for Maorishadow in the Group 3 Tontine Trotting Championship at Horsham on Monday was a long time coming.
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But he hopes it's a sign his ultra-talented Group race winning mare mare is getting back to somewhere near her best.
Maorishdow showed exactly what she was capable of by capturing the Group 2 Vicbred Platinum Trotting Mares Sprint Championship at Tabcorp Park Melton last January.
She followed up by making it back-to-back wins at Melton a fortnight later before things went awry.
Her next 14 starts produced just two placings before she was one of four horses in the stable to be struck down by illness late in 2020.
"We had a virus go through the stable towards the end of last year, so a lot of the horses are only getting back to the races now," Gadsden said.
"So it was good to get the result on Monday.
"She won that Group 2 mare's sprint race about this time last year and then she won in town two weeks later, but from then on she's been in the wilderness for a bit.
"She's been in and out a few times, which has been quite frustrating, and then she got crook with that virus and put a couple of real shockers in.
"It was a blessing in a disguise in one way, it was a chance to just turn her out for a couple of weeks and fully reset and go again.
"(Monday) was her first run since then, so it was nice to know that she's still got it, that it wasn't just a flash in the pan last year."
Driven by Denbeigh Wade, Maorishdow was forced to do it the hard way at Horsham after coming off 20m, but showed her class by producing a 13.2m margin over Milly An Eyre, with the Ray Cross-trained Whos Countin back in third, 27.5, from the winner.
It was career win number eight from 33 starts for the now six-year-old and her owner Stephen Blacker and the mare's fifth since her transfer to Gadsden from David Van Ryn at Marong in November 2019.
Gadsden said he had never stopped hoping Maorishadow could recapture her career-best form of early last year, but had at times wondered whether maybe the end of her career was nigh.
"We were hoping, but after the last prep, there was that doubt in the back of our mind that maybe she was done or had had enough," he said.
"After her last run at Melton (on December 12) when she led, but dropped out and pulled up with a few things wrong, I was left wondering.
"But after giving her a few weeks off to get over the virus, it felt like it was make or break this time around."
Unfortunately for Gadsden and his partner Wade, Maorishadow was not the only horse in the stable to be struck down by the virus.
Also affected were the trotting mare Downtown Miss, the capable pacing gelding Regardless and one of the stable's promising unraced youngsters.
"In the end probably the four best horses in the stable got it, so there's been a bit of a drop in runners," he said.
"Downtown Miss had won that race at Swan Hill and then we took her to town and she ran third in a Group 3 and was knocking on the door of winning in town, but her next two runs were shocking.
"They all looked well and worked well, but they would get to the last 400m at the races and just stop.
"We ended up getting bloods down and found the electrolyte levels were way out of balance and had to give them a few weeks off.
"They are all just coming back in now."
An 'underdone' Downtown Miss returned to racing last Thursday at Kilmore, notching up a fourth in her heat to hopefully qualify for this Friday night's final of the Vicbred Platinum Trotting Mares Sprint Championship.
It's the same race won 12 months ago by Maorishadow, who will either progress to the heats of the Breed for Speed series or be set for a tilt at the Group 3 Terang Trotter Cup on February 20.
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