Champion pacer Blacks A Fake has been hit by equine influenza, ruining at least the first half of his season.
The Queensland hero, winner of the last two Interdominion Finals, tested positive to EI late on Wednesday.
He is one of seven pacers on the property of trainerNatalie Rasmussen, who trains 40km south-west of Brisbane, to test positive.
That left the connections of Blacks A Fake stunned as they had no indication he had any problem.
The property next door had had a horse come down with the virus, which has caused chaos in Australia, particularly New South Wales, since first being found there two weeks ago.
While there had been smaller outbreaks in Queensland, no big-name racehorses had fallen victim to it. Until Wednesday.
While not fatal, the virus means Blacks A Fake will miss some work but, more importantly, won't be able to leave the property until 30 days after every horse in the stable tests negative.
That means he cannot trial until at least mid-October at the absolute earliest, ruling him out of the early Grand Circuit races in Queensland.
That will also make it very hard for him to gain enough race fitness for the Miracle Mile and Victoria Cup in November and December.
Blacks A Fake was to be nominated for the $600,000 New Zealand Trotting Cup on November 13 but that would now be pointless.
