The long way back: Headwall returns to the Everest conversation

Cover image courtesy of Sportpix

Twelve months ago, Headwall (Dream Ahead {USA}) won the G3 Concorde Stakes and put himself in contention for a place in The Everest. By the time he returned to scale, however, the campaign was over.

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A hind-leg injury would keep him away from racing for a year.

On Saturday, Headwall finally returned in the race that had launched his Everest bid, finishing second to Tempted (Street Boss {USA}) in the now-upgraded G2 Concorde Stakes.

For breeder and part-owner Reg Young, the result revived a possibility that had appeared and disappeared on the same afternoon a year earlier.

“We’re all racing for second place here in The Everest. Ka Ying Rising is an extraordinary horse, the best by a country mile I think, but it would be lovely to be racing against him,” Young told The Sydney Morning Herald.

Trainer Matthew Smith was equally encouraged by Headwall’s return after overseeing his rehabilitation at his farm Luskin Park, which he purchased in 2020.

“It was very satisfying to get him back on Saturday,” Smith told TTR AusNZ. “The owners have put plenty into him over the year off. They got some prizemoney back and enjoyed seeing the horse run well.

“The Shorts is next, then I’m trying to get him into The Everest.”

An unusual injury but not so unusual

Headwall sustained a bone chip in a hind pastern after the 2025 Concorde Stakes victory. The injury was in an unusual location and was inoperable but with time has healed to the point where Headwall has regained full soundness.

“If you've got racehorses, you've got injuries. Every stable has them,” Smith said.

“But when you get a good horse, they’re very hard to find, so it’s worth the effort (to heal).”

And Headwall certainly meets the criteria of being a good horse. First seen at the trials as an October 2-year-old, he didn’t make his debut until the end of his 3-year-old season winning his first two starts. He added four more city class wins before heading into Group company.

“Headwall was lame in behind after his first up run last time in. Through a process of elimination and investigation with the vets, we found that he'd pulled a little bit of bone off the back of his sesamoid,” Smith said.

“The bone wasn’t operable because it’s imbedded in the ligaments. It wasn’t an injury that was going to stop him racing, it was more like having something under your nail. An annoying irritant. But with the lameness, we were concerned about doing any more damage, so we gave him an extended spell for four months.

“I don’t really like giving horses that much time off because we see injuries occur when they’ve had an extended break and you’re trying to build them up again,” he said.

Headwall’s return was consequently measured in months rather than weeks.

The injury no X-ray could find

On the other side of the country, Too Dardy (Demerit) provided another reward for persistence when he won Saturday’s Listed Farnley Stakes for trainer Justine Erkelens.

It was the 7-year-old’s first stakes victory and his third successive win. For much of his career, however, his connections could not establish why he repeatedly became sore.

Too Dardy suffered a fetlock fracture before making his debut and spent approximately 12 months recovering. He eventually began racing as a 4-year-old in January 2023, finishing second on debut and winning at his following start.

The original fracture healed, but the problems did not end.

“When he came back, he was still never 100%,” Erkelens said. “We had him checked again, but over several years we’d bring him in, he’d go sore and all the X-rays still couldn’t find anything.

“He’d go out for a lengthy spell, but it wasn’t solving the problem. The horse had been X-rayed 100 bloody times!”

Repeated interruptions followed. Too Dardy would race briefly, become sore and return to the paddock. Eventually, his connections took him to Murdoch University for a CT scan.

“If it wasn’t for the CT scan at Murdoch, we would have been scratching our heads forever,” Erkelens said.

The scan found a bone spur at the back of his knee. It was located in a different joint from the original injury and had been hidden on conventional X-rays.

Once the spur was removed, Too Dardy required another lengthy rehabilitation and did not race between November 2025 and May this year.

He has now completed seven starts this preparation, winning three, with the Farnley Stakes taking his career record to seven victories and more than $400,000 in prizemoney.

“He has always shown potential,” Erkelens said. “He’s a bloody nice horse and he was lightly raced. Everything that was wrong with him was treatable, so why wouldn’t we try?

“We were lucky that the owners waited for him, and now it has paid off.”

Too Dardy, a $30,000 purchase by Erkelens and John Chalmers Bloodstock from Willow Dale Farm at the Magic Millions Perth Yearling Sale, became the seventh stakes winner for Demerit.

He is one of two winners from the unraced Rolexia (Snitzel) and the 58th stakes winner out of a daughter of Snitzel.

“He’ll race in a fortnight in the TABtouch Stakes,” Erkelens said. “We’ll make a plan after that, but now he’s sound and can race on wet or dry tracks, we can look for some races at Ascot.”

Deciding whether to continue

Too Dardy’s 14 owners funded repeated examinations, scans, surgery and long periods out of racing without any certainty that he would return.

“It’s costly,” Erkelens said. “You have the scans, then surgery and aftercare, followed by months and months of rehabilitation.”

Smith said the decision to proceed with a lengthy rehabilitation depended on the injury, the prognosis and the horse’s demonstrated ability.

“Once you have the diagnosis, you talk to the owners,” he said. “It’s their decision, based on the prognosis and what we think of the horse’s ability.

“They aren’t going to embark on a long rehabilitation if we don’t think the horse is likely to make it back or be competitive.”

If returning to racing is no longer suitable, Smith said the focus turns to finding the horse another career.

“There are still things outside racing for them,” he said. “It isn’t the end of the road. We always try to rehome them and, if we can’t, we put them through Racing NSW’s rehoming program.”

The process of rehabilitation is an expensive one, as Too Dardy’s group of fourteen owners are well aware of.

Rebuilding from the walk

Smith and his wife Melissa purchased Luskin Park at Luskintyre in 2020 and have since added a sand track and treadmill for rehabilitation work. The sand track is firmer on the inside and becomes progressively deeper towards the outside, allowing the workload to be increased gradually.

“We start them slowly on the firmer sand and then move them into the deeper section as they become stronger,” Smith said.

A horse returning from a long spell may spend several weeks walking on a treadmill, followed by periods walking under saddle and then trotting. Cantering does not begin until a base level of conditioning has been restored.

“They do a good eight weeks before they start doing much work,” Smith said. “After that, you can begin working them in the deeper sand and developing their cardiovascular fitness.

“A lot of these injuries are manageable if you have a horse that can cope with the slow build. Thoroughbreds are built to run; they can become annoyed walking around slowly. But when you have a good horse, it’s worth taking the time.”

Headwall is not the only spring horse to have come through the program. Floating (Puissance De Lune {Ire}), Leica Storm (Snitzel) and G1 VRC Oaks placegetter Aethelflaed (Saxon Warrior {Jpn}) have all undergone rehabilitation for tendon injuries.

“Aethelflaed is running on Saturday after her second tendon injury,” Smith said. “Last preparation she had two runs, for a win and a second, and then injured the tendon again, so she has had another year off.

“She is a very good mare. You want to give a horse like her every chance.”

The role of veterinary imaging

Too Dardy’s case showed the limits of repeatedly examining the same area with the same technology. The problem was identified only after a CT scan allowed veterinarians to examine structures that had not been visible on conventional X-rays.

Smith said veterinary monitoring remained central throughout rehabilitation, even after a diagnosis had been made.

“Our vets are heavily involved in scanning the injury and telling us when to stop, or when we can go slower or faster,” he said. “The imaging is very sensitive now and vets can identify quite small changes.”

According to Smith, the treatment and management immediately following an injury can have a major bearing on whether a horse returns.

“The first month can make or break the rehabilitation,” he said. “If you don’t manage the horse properly and give the ligament or tendon the best chance to heal, it becomes much harder.”

Knowing when enough is enough

Rehabilitation does not always return a horse to sustained racing.

Fortuna Racing’s G2 Schillaci Stakes winner and Group 1 placegetter Bellatrix Star (Star Witness) will be offered through this week’s Inglis Digital Sale after her connections elected to retire her as a broodmare prospect.

Bellatrix Star fractured a vertebra in her neck when she flipped over backwards in January 2025. Despite an initially poor prognosis, trainer Mark Walker and his team rehabilitated her sufficiently to race again.

“When it happened, the vet said she would never race again, but Mark worked his magic and we were able to rehabilitate her,” Fortuna’s John Galvin said.

“She had long paddock spells and did some dressage. When she resumed at Caulfield in November, she ran below par and the next morning we found a chip in a fetlock.”

The chip was surgically removed and Bellatrix Star returned again, finishing second in the G3 Sir John Monash Stakes in July. Her connections decided last week that she had done enough.

A winner of the G2 Schillaci Stakes and runner-up to Switzerland (Snitzel) in the G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes, Bellatrix Star retires as one of four winners from Alana’s Party (Exceed And Excel), a daughter of G1 New Zealand Stakes winner The Party Stand (NZ) (Thorn Park).

Headwall and Too Dardy have returned to produce career-best performances. Bellatrix Star returned twice before her connections chose another future for her.

Each decision required time, money and no small amount of uncertainty. For Headwall, the reward may yet be a place in Australia’s richest race. For Too Dardy, it has already delivered a first stakes victory. For Bellatrix Star, it was the chance to leave racing on her feet and begin a breeding career.