Owners Continue To Monitor Xtravagant

Te Akau Racing will continue to monitor Xtravagant but have not found anything amiss in the 24 hours since his failure at Flemington.

The New Zealand star behaved badly before Saturday's Bobbie Lewis Quality (1200m) at Flemington and Damien Oliver eased him down in the race.

His co-trainer Stephen Autridge said he was actually better pre-race than on his previous visit in the autumn.

Te Akau, which races the horse, said so far all tests were clear ahead of the results of blood tests.

"We immediately had Blake (Xtravagant) vetted and his heart, his legs and the scope all came back 100 per cent," Te Akau said in a statement.

"The good news and the most critical news is that we have (subject to the blood reports) a physically well horse and that is a huge worry off all of our minds."

Autridge also had a bad day when he was hit with a $500 fine for giving a treatment called Neutradex to Xtravagant on Friday against the Australian rules.

Stewards took pre-race blood and urine samples from Xtravagant and, after establishing the 30mg of the alkalinising agent would have a negligible effect on the horse's TCO2 level, allowed him to start.