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By Ray Hickson

Just about everything that could go wrong has for Jack Pilkington’s talented galloper Alabama State so he’s hoping for a fresh start at Rosehill on Saturday.

Jack Pilkington with Alabama State (Pic: Bradley Photos).

The Hawkesbury trainer hasn’t been shy about making his opinion of the four-year-old known and after four straight runs in stakes company he’s back where he started a year ago, but now as a gelding, in the Midway Handicap (1300m).

There were big plans for Alabama State earlier this year but they didn’t pan out due to injury and it started a snowball effect that saw him in the wars for the next few months.

“He damaged a muscle before his second-up run last campaign, he’d loom into races and couldn’t extend,’’ Pilkington said.

“His first-up run was lovely and I’d confident he’d win the South Pacific Classic. I thought the Hawkesbury Guineas was a nice race and then we were going to Brisbane for the Fred Best and if he won that we’d go to the Stradbroke.

“It wasn’t that he needed gelding but he didn’t achieve enough as a two and here year old to justify keeping him a colt and we want longevity and sometimes it keeps the weight off.”

Winter wasn’t the best time for Alabama State.

After he was gelded and started trotting up again he contracted colic twice and once over that he impaled himself on a fence post in the paddock, an accident that could easily have cost him his life.

Pilkington is pleased to report since that incident his preparation has been trouble free.

He’s given the horse a similar build up to last spring where he won first-up, ran second in the corresponding race on Golden Rose day before winning a Midway then running an unlucky fourth in the Four Pillars and a fourth in the Group 3 Spring Stakes.

“He had a quiet trial at Warwick Farm then a trial at Hawksbury, funnily enough in both Hawkesbury trials (this year and last year) there was a tearaway winner of Mitch Beer’s,’’ he said.

“He’s trialled really well, I haven’t let him off the bridle since he ran in the Hawkesbury Guineas and I’ve let him get fit and kept him fresh.

“I’d like a nice preparation and to get everything back on track.

“I think he’s a gun, but he’s probably more of a gun to me than he might be to a big stable. He means a lot to me, he’s got more horses in the stable for being so good for me.”

Alabama State, $4.80 with TAB on Thursday, jumps from barrier two in the Midway and Pilkington hopes he can make life easy for himself and land in a good position.

While he aimed high in the autumn he said the bar will stay low and he’s confident he’s in the right race to have that positive start to his new season.

“If he’s not the best horse in the race with all things being equal I’d be surprised,’’ he said.

Alabama State runs third in a Hawkesbury trial on September 15

“But I haven’t dared let him off the bridle at any point. He’s a clean winded horse and I think he will be okay with 1300m, he’s a big fellow so he won’t mind carrying the weight.

“I want to put him in the easiest races we can, we’re not aiming high now because he’s not a colt any more.

“We’ll let him enjoy his racing, we’d love a win or two and if he rises up the handicap to something that comes at the right time so be it but there’s no particular grand final.”

All the fields, form and replays for Saturday’s Golden Rose meeting at Rosehill