Attached to heart rate monitors pounding away on a university treadmill – an equine version, of course. Not your everyday pre-training routine. But then again, Malavio is not your everyday horse.
"It was a punishing process, but he came through with flying colours," trainer Steve Englebrecht said. "If he didn't look like he was going to come back sound and competitive, he would be retired."
But that can wait for another day. The electronic monitoring – and the trained naked eye – suggest Malavio has come back sound and competitive, just as Englebrecht had hoped.
A far cry from almost nine months ago, when the gelding weakened alarmingly out of the Hawkesbury Gold Cup in a performance too bad to be true.
Fortunately – or unfortunately, whichever way you look at it – cardiac arrhythmia was deemed to be the reason for Malavio's failure that day.
Stewards ordered tests – and testing trials, to boot – all of which Malavio has managed to please in to pave the way for his return in the group 2 Expressway Stakes at Rosehill on Saturday.
"The whole process we went through was just for his safety and the safety of the jockey, to make sure he was fit enough to go back to the races," Englebrecht said.
"He had three months in the paddock, so it was a bit of a process to get him to fitness, and to do all the tests."
And weren't they worth doing! Reduced to just a moderate team, almost in single figures these days, Englebrecht unashamedly admits his three-time stakes winner, with prizemoney on the verge of crashing through the half-million dollar mark, has helped keep him going in a sport where the big often get bigger and the small struggle to survive.
"He's been great to me, to be honest," said Englebrecht, who drove to Moruya on the far south coast a couple of weeks ago to win the Moruya Cup with Retort Courteous. "I've only got 10 in work and in a small stable like mine, to have a horse of his quality is a rarity and a bonus.
"He put bread and butter on the table for a while, I can tell you. He's won a Tramway, a Civic and the Festival after coming down from the bush.
"A guy at Quirindi [Bill Thompson] had him and he did a great job with him ... and the horse has done a great job since."
Almost 40 years after owner-breeder Ottavio Galletta owned 1976 Australian Harness Horse of the Year Don't Retreat, he is happy to have another whirl with Malavio in the thoroughbred game.
Named after his grandchildren Maria, Laura and Ottavio, Galletta has been hearing only positive reports from his trainer so far this preparation.
Englebrecht said he would be the last person to be surprised if the six-year-old runs a cheeky race at long odds in the Expressway, in which Chris Waller is set to resume five of his imposing autumn team on the trail to bigger targets later in the carnival.
Malavio was a $17 Expressway chance with Ladbrokes on Thursday evening, as three-year-old Panzer Division ($3.40) dominated betting.
"He's drawn lovely and he's going to be very, very competitive in that field," Englebrecht said of Malavio, set to be freshened-up for the Stradbroke Handicap after a short Sydney campaign.
"He pulled up outstanding from [his first trial]. We gave him a little bit of a harder trial at his second one and he ran sensational time and came through with flying colours. He's been a very happy horse since and he's looked very sharp.
"All the top class sprinters are headed south, so it might be a good time to meet some of these horses first-up. He's fresh and happy and he always performs well first-up. I'm highly confident he'll be around the money somewhere, that's for sure."
Which sure beats tripping around the countryside in search of making a dollar
"I'd be making a lot of trips to the bush [without him], I'd tip," Englebrecht said.
