Racing: Top Ardmore trainer McKee still in Waikato Hospital after collapse

Stephen McKeeIt's a frustrated Stephen McKee who remains in Waikato Hospital after his collapse at Te Rapa races last Saturday.

McKee has been moved from cardiac care to the neurological ward and continues to go through a raft of tests.

Outwardly there appears little wrong with the highly successful Ardmore trainer who continues, as always, to deliver his cheeky one-line jibes.

But he is in pain and a significant level of the numbness that accompanied his collapse last weekend remains. Specialists are not prepared to release him from hospital and have included spinal tests.

"We're not getting the crisp answers we were hoping for and I guess we won't until the tests are complete," said his wife Fiona.

"There is nothing you can see on the outside, but he's in pain and they haven't found the main cause yet.

"It's such a puzzler - it's a process of elimination."

* Probably the best beaten performance in the top grades in recent months was Martini Red's third at Ellerslie on April 17.

Perhaps we shouldn't have been surprised, but then it's easy to forget just how good some horses are when we haven't seen them for a while.

That was Martini Red's first race start in a year.

She'd been retired, failed to get into foal in Australia and was sent back to Ross Elliot's Cambridge stable to be put back into work.

Some horses never regain form after that scenario. That Martini Red could go close to winning in a very competitive race at her first start back tells you an awful lot.

It also tells you how the opposition is going to have to be careful in her second comeback appearance in today's $45,000 Rotorua Stakes.

Martini Red's Ellerslie third - one length from impressive winner Pennacchio - was superb. Alvin Ng is a good boy and a bright young apprentice with a future, but his inexperience perhaps showed a touch when he and Martini Red got flushed three wide approaching the home turn at Ellerslie.

Instead of being able to be held up, Martini Red was working a fair way out, something she needed to avoid after so long away from racing.

That she was beaten by so little by a horse she was conceding considerable weight to surprised even Elliot.

"When she won her first trial at Cambridge she didn't do an awful lot of work before she had her second trial at Te Awamutu so she blew very heavily. "I knew after that she'd badly need her first race, so it was a very good run."

Elliot said this would be a different story. "The improvement has been significant. That first-up run was tough, but it didn't knock her because she'd had the two barrier trials."

Martini Red is almost one of the forgotten horses. Three years ago she was unbeaten in three juvenile starts as a dual stakes-winning 2-year-old.

She beat Imananabaa and Clifton Prince in the Darley Plate at Ellerslie at three then won the Windsor Park (Cambridge) Breeders Stakes at Te Rapa.

She was only a touch short of the very best. She finished two lengths off Mufhasa when fourth in the group one Telegraph at Trentham and 2.8 lengths off the same horse in the group one Waikato Draught Sprint.

None of her opposition today could have done that, yet she probably won't start favourite.

The wide draw at No 11 looks awkward, but that will become No 8 if the field remains intact and only the emergencies are withdrawn.