Five-time winner Il Cavallo (Aus) (Choisir {Aus}) is being returned to training after proving to be severely subfertile during his first season at New Zealand's Chequers Stud, according to a report on nzracing.co.nz.
The 6-year-old is out of Gold Chant (Aus), an El Moxie half-sister to Starspangledbanner (Aus), who is also by Choisir and has had fertility issues which have led to him covering a restricted book of mares. Il Cavallo was bought as a stallion prospect by Mark Fraser-Campin and Chris Campin to stand at their Cambridge farm but the brothers have been forced to admit defeat with the former Peter Moody trainee.
“He's basically infertile, he only got three mares officially in foal. Obviously, it was a disaster of a season for us. We got him for all the right reasons and it's just been very unfortunate,” said Fraser-Campin.
“We had 80 mares booked to him so we would like to thank all those breeders for their support and patience during what was a tough and disappointing time for all concerned.”
A precocious juvenile, Il Cavallo was also Listed-placed in both Australia and New Zealand before retiring to stud. He has now been gelded ahead of his planned racecourse comeback.
Fraser Campin added, “As a stallion it was hard to get weight off him, he was a big, heavy horse and now he's come down from 650 to 595kg. He's done six weeks on the treadmill and has been back in full work for a couple of weeks.
“He'll probably have a trial in February and by the time he's ready all the big sprints will have gone so we'll look for an open race for him. We could possibly look at Brisbane if he came up really well.”
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