JIM DREAPER'S Harcon is still "very sore" after his comeback fall at Gowran Park on Saturday, but early indications suggest the nine-year-old has escaped bone damage, the trainer's wife Patricia said yesterday.
Harcon, who finished second to Brief Gale in the 1995 Sun Alliance Chase at the Cheltenham Festival, had been off the course for 22 months after suffering a tendon injury at the Punchestown Festival.
Sent off at 4 to 9 to make a winning reappearance in the Red Mills Trial Chase at Gowran yesterday, Harcon jumped sketchily until taking a crashing fall at the seventh fence of the three-mile contest, won by Nuaffe.
"The vet was here when we arrived back last night, and there is a lot of swelling and a lot of haemorrhaging, but it looks like there is no bone damage," said Mrs Dreaper.
"It is a terrible blow but at least he didn't damage the tendons in, his forelegs, so it is a different injury. It is now a question of time. These things are sent to try us."
