Gidleigh Park© Photo Healy Racing
Gidleigh Park is undergoing further tests after suffering a second episode of atrial fibrillation on his chasing debut at Kempton on Monday.
Harry Fry’s stable star won his first three starts over hurdles last term, including a Grade Two victory at Cheltenham, before finishing sixth in the Albert Bartlett at the Festival in March.
Hopes were high ahead of the six-year-old’s introduction to the larger obstacles, but he was pulled up by Bryan Carver after jumping just five fences, with a subsequent stewards’ report revealing he was found to have an irregular heartbeat.
Fry revealed it is not the first time Gidleigh Park has been diagnosed with a heart issue and the team are now fully focussed on his recovery.
“He seems absolutely fine himself. The vets have been running tests and he’s been having an ECG and we’re just awaiting further results,” the trainer said on Tuesday.
“He did have an episode of atrial fibrillation at the beginning of October last season and reset himself within sort of 24 hours. He obviously went on and had a good novice hurdle campaign, so we’ve been here before with him and monitor him closely.
“You could see early on in the race at Kempton that things weren’t right, he wasn’t travelling and certainly wasn’t jumping with the zest that we’d expect. Bryan was very quick to pull him up when clearly there was something amiss and so it’s proved.”
Fry is in no rush to make future plans for Gidleigh Park, adding: “We’re back to the drawing board and awaiting results from the vets. There’s no timeline on it or anything like that. It’s obviously paramount first and foremost that we give him a chance to recover.
“The best-case scenario is he’ll correct himself, but if he doesn’t, he’ll potentially need treatment. It’s still very early days and we’ll just try and get to the bottom of it and make plans from there.
“We’re not getting ahead of ourselves, we’ve got to get him right first before we think about anything else or make any plans whatsoever. That’s our focus at the moment, getting to the bottom of it and getting him back to full health before we think about what might happen next.”
