Energumene making strides towards racing return

Energumene is recovering well from the injury that curtailed a Champion Chase hat-trick bid, with connections determined to return the dual Cheltenham Festival hero to the racecourse this winter.

Owned by Brighton chief Tony Bloom, the former king of the two-mile chasing division was denied the chance to become a three-time winner at National Hunt racing’s showpiece event when suffering a leg injury last autumn which ruled him out of the whole 2023-24 campaign.

However, there are positive signs from Closutton, with the 10-year-old – who has won 12 of his 15 career starts – enjoying some time at grass before the tune-up process ahead of the new season begins later in the summer.

“I bumped into Willie at Royal Ascot and Energumene has been out on grass since June 12, which is a great sign,” said Sean Graham, Bloom’s racing manager.

“The tendon injury he had wasn’t a serious one, but we took no risk with it whatsoever. He had six weeks of box rest and then was scanned. The scan showed the injury was healing, so he had some more box rest before we scanned him again, which showed further healing and the injury had got better again.

“He’s been on grass since June and he will probably have July and will be brought back in the second week of August. Then it will be a process of six weeks’ walking and then when he does start cantering, keeping an eye that the injury isn’t flaring up again so it will be one step at a time.

“He’s in the right hands and with somebody with loads and loads of patience. We will do everything we possibly can to get the horse back on the track again.”

It appeared stablemate El Fabiolo was ready to fill the void left by Energumene in last season’s Champion Chase, but with the younger chaser fluffing his lines as the odds-on favourite, connections were left to rue their injury woes as they watched Henry de Bromhead’s Captain Guinness take home the trophy.

The Energumene team are now expecting to follow a similar path to Prestbury Park provided their star performer returns to his championship best this autumn.

Graham continued: “The Hilly Way (at Cork) is normally where he goes and he hasn’t gone to Leopardstown, he has gone to the Clarence House. Both times he got beat in the Clarence House and then won at Cheltenham.

“After Cheltenham he normally goes to Punchestown and he normally has four races every year. I don’t want to plan too far ahead though and we will take it one step at a time with him.

“We’re probably ruing the fact he did get injured because the way the Champion Chase panned out, you would be very disappointed if he hadn’t have been there or thereabouts.”