3 minute read

Lee Somervell would love to see Addictive Habit return to the racetrack in a new role after a tendon injury forced the Group One winner into retirement this week.

Somervell had Addictive Habit entered for Saturday's Listed Members Handicap (1400m) at Doomben but had to withdraw the 2015 Gr.1 Livamol Classic winner on Tuesday morning.

"He's got a hole in his tendon twice the size of a pinhead about two inches below where he injured his tendon last time," Somervell said.

"That time he stretched the fibres and we did the right thing by him and gave him 12 months off racing. He had been coming up nicely but obviously the stress of racing is a different facet altogether.

"The vet treating him said if he was a younger horse there was a possibility he could race again but as an eight-year-old, the tendon doesn't repair the same. It's a sad day but a happy, sad day because it's an injury that won't stop him from coming back as a clerk of the course horse or something similar later on."

Somervell said Addictive Habit, affectionately known as Cody, had the perfect temperament to become a clerk of the course horse or even as a mount for Trackside's Emily Murphy for her horseback jockey interviews on premier racedays.

"Nothing worries him. You can tie him up with a piece of string and you can lead horses off him. He'd love that too."

Addictive Habit, whose dam was a half-sister to champion galloper Rough Habit, won 11 of his 40 races, earning more than $771,000 for owners Graham and Isabel Roddick, Bill O'Brien, Colin and Anne Scott and Keith and Meryl Treadaway.

"He won nearly three-quarters of a million dollars and he won a Group One race but probably my biggest thrill with him was winning the Coupland's Mile back-to-back," Somervell said.

"The second one, he carried 59 1/2 kilos and was in a hopeless position with 600m to run but Sam Spratt kept him going and he was able to get up. It was such a courageous win.

"He only had 40 starts so he was really only lightly-tried. He tweaked his tendon after he was unplaced in the Derby of his year and had 12 months off.

"He's been such a wonderful horse to have in the stable. Anybody who has anything to do with him falls in love with him."