Dubai Mile out for season with fractured fetlock

Group One winner Dubai Mile has been ruled out for the rest of the season through injury.

The three-year-old was expected to make his debut for Martyn and Freddie Meade in Saturday’s Sky Bet York Stakes on the Knavesmire having joined from Charlie Johnston.

However, last season’s Criterium de Saint-Cloud winner suffered an injury during his final piece of work on Tuesday.

“We were preparing him to run in the Sky Bet York Stakes when he suffered a conjugal fracture on his near-hind fetlock, so it is an absolute tragedy,” Martyn Meade told the Press Association.

“We were giving him his last bit of work yesterday on our watered peat moss gallop, which was absolutely perfect for him, but it was just a complete freak accident.

“We managed to get him straight up Newmarket, where he has been operated on and it has been pinned. That appears to be a success.

“However, he is clearly out for the rest of the season, I would think. It always happens to the best horses. You wouldn’t believe it.”

The son of Roaring Lion progressed nicely through his juvenile campaign for Charlie and Mark Johnston.

Yet he had failed to build on that success in three starts this term. Although fifth to Chaldean in the 2000 Guineas, he was subsequently ninth in the Derby and finished eight lengths behind King Of Steel in the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot.

Thereafter, he joined the Meades’ Manton Park Stud after a deal was secured to purchase a half-share in the colt from owner Ahmad Al Shaikh, with a view to a stallion career.

“We will have to assess how he recovers from that surgery and assess whether or not he will have a racing career or whether he will be going to stud,” Meade went on.

“It is heartbreaking really, also for Ahmed who is our joint-owner, who has been very good about it, I have to say. He has been very understanding.

“When it happens, it affects everyone, the lads who do them, they get very upset by it, understandably so. It is terrible for everyone. A huge blow.”