After 72 starts, a cracked pastern has ended the racing career of Unusual Suspect.
Trainer Michael Kent told the Herald-Sun a hard surface at Flemington and an incorrect rating of that surface by racing stewards that suggested the turf had more give, led to the 8-year-old Unusual Heat horse sustaining the injury in the Bagot Handicap Jan. 1. His stablemate, You Think So, also was pulled up in the about 1 3/4-mile race.
Kent noted that if the surface had been rated firmer, trainers would have been allowed to scratch horses.
While trained by Barry Abrams, Unusual Suspect won six stakes races in California from 2007-2010, highlighted by the 2010 Hollywood Turf Cup Stakes (gr. IT) for owners Barry, David, and Dyan Abrams. Primarily racing in Southern California, he placed in 11 other U.S. stakes races, five of which were graded.
In 2011, Unusual Suspect was sold to an Australian ownership group although Barry Abrams retained a percentage of the horse. Unusual Suspect won the 2012 TAB Werribee Cup.
Unusual Suspect
Benoit Photography