Alligator Blood and stablemate Dawn Patrol enjoying an early morning wade through the water at Altona.
Alligator Blood had been switched from David Vandyke to another Sunshine Coast trainer in Billy Healey, known for having a focus on swimming. After three moderate handicap runs, he was again consigned to history by many. But Simpson says Healey was “bringing him along nice and slowly”. The gelding had also shouldered 61kg in those runs, and, with fitness improving, that prompted a transfer to Randwick’s Gai Waterhouse and Adrian Bott. He’d again tackle major races, under lighter weights. The first was the Group 3 BRC Sprint at Eagle Farm in May, 2022. “In those first runs with Billy,” Simpson said, “you could see he wasn’t travelling straight in the home straight. He was thinking, ‘Is this about to hurt me?’ “But in the BRC Sprint, about the 350-metre mark, his head turned to the side a little, but he straightened up, pushed through it and ran a close second. I thought, ‘We might have our horse back’.” So they did, as his next start – victory in the G1 Stradbroke Handicap – and his ensuing spring heroics proved. “We knew he could return to his old ability once he started to relax,” Waterhouse said. “He was a little nervous at first, which can happen when horses come from different places to our place. You’ve got to observe the horse, watch how you’re training them, take in their mannerisms, and that helps you get them to chill out. Once he started to relax, things were OK. “He’s marvellous. He’s tough, he’s durable, he rolls up his sleeves and he gets on with the job.”
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