For most horses, a throat operation is a matter of racing again or not. For cult horse Go Wandji, it was a matter of life and death.
The winning machine from Toowoomba was subject to huge Hong Kong offers and had the racing world at his feet before a throat condition stopped him in his tracks.
After a first bout of surgery didn’t go to plan, trainer Tom Dougall was forced to go again with his popular horse, but this time to save his life.
“(Renowned vet) Ian Fulton operated on him the second time and he was operating on him to save his life, not save his racing career,” Dougall said.
“Once he got in there, things went better than he thought and to be perfectly honest, two weeks after the second operation, the horse was fantastic.
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“Ian told us, ‘If you want him to live, we will do this (surgery), but it will be it for him (from racing)’.
“We wanted to save him, of course.
“We didn’t have a lot of luck the first time, but we had a lot of luck the second time, now here we are.”
Go Wandji returns at Eagle Farm on Saturday after almost 15 months off racing, where Dougall admits he is just happy to see the horse racing again.
Owned by his father John, the $20,000 bargain buy is one of the fairytale stories of Queensland racing and has had a handful of unofficial jump outs at Toowoomba to ready him for Saturday’s Benchmark 85 Handicap (1200m).
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“The horse is really good, as far as health is concerned, we wouldn’t be running him unless everyone was happy with him, so he’s terrific that way,” Dougall said.
“Realistically, 15 months is a long time off so you’d think he’d be a bit ring rusty to be honest.
“He has been in work a long time and we were in no hurry to start him, if he was going to ever race again we’d have to be happy with him.
“We were happy with him two jump outs ago, so we looked at the races and found this, it gave us time to have another jumpout.
“He has never won a jumpout in his life, he’s not that type of horse, but his recovery has been good and everyone has been happy.”
Go Wandji is a $4 chance to return in winning fashion on Saturday.
Originally published as Toowoomba star Go Wandji prepares for comeback following lifesaving throat surgery
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