James Tate suffered a huge blow on Thursday as one of his stable stars for the season Far Above suffered a career ending injury just when he was primed to potentially hit the big time.
The lightly-raced four-year-old had only raced five times in his short career and looked like he was a star in the making having won on his seasonal debut at Newmarket in the Palace House Stakes to land a hat-trick of wins.
However, he returned lame after his impressive win but Tate thought that he would be getting better news about him during the week but it was not the case and the handler reported that the colt had injured a sesamoid in a front leg, which would see him never race again.
(Credit AtTheRaces) Tate said: āUnfortunately it was the news we didnāt want.
āItās a small injury, but a particularly awkward one in a tricky place.āItās been a brilliant but brief career ā who knows what could have been?
āYou all got a glimpse of it in the Palace House, but from what we saw at home, we know just how good he could have been. He still wasnāt at 100 per cent on Saturday.
āThe silver lining is that he can have a second career now, at stud. If he hadnāt won on Saturday that wouldnāt have been possible.
āWeāll try to bounce back. Weāve got Ascot next week and weāll try to get on the board there.ā