By MIKE DILLON
Champion mare Sunline is in enormous shape for Saturday's $A213,000 Feehan Stakes at Moonee Valley and Trevor McKee has a badly injured thumb to prove it.
The fitter Sunline gets in a preparation the closer she gets to her bitchy best.
Yesterday in Melbourne she savaged McKee's thumb requiring the hugely experienced Takanini trainer to make his first visit to a doctor in 15 years.
Strapper Claire Bird, no stranger to the vagaries of Sunline's moods, was working on Sunline at Mike Moroney's stables, Chiquita Lodge when the incident happened.
"Trevor was holding her while I stretched her legs and she grabbed his thumb and bit into it on both sides."
The wound required stitches at a local surgery, the doctor horrified when told it was McKee's first tetanus injection in 15 years.
"He told me to come back on Friday and let him have a look at it - I told him there was no chance he'd see me again," McKee said.
Claire Bird rides Sunline in all her trackwork and says she can feel the millionaire mare approaching her best form.
"You can tell she's very well, she's jumping out of her skin and generally giving me a hard time - just being the usual bitch in general.
"But if she wasn't like that I'd be worried."
Because of the cold temperatures in Melbourne, Sunline is taking time to shed her winter coat, but her colour is very strong and her attitude bright.
Saturday's Feehan Stakes has not drawn a strong line-up, but an interesting runner is Freemason, chipping at Showella's heels for Caulfield Cup favouritism.
Freemason produced a fast finish for third when resuming from a spell in the Tramway Handicap at Rosehill last Saturday week.
Racing: Sunline ready to savage Feehan rivals
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