Weight-for-age star El Segundo faces an uncertain future after suffering a tendon injury.
The 6-year-old will miss this year's autumn carnival and is unlikely to be back in time for the spring, with trainer Colin Little all but ruling out El Segundo's chances of defending his Cox Platecrown.
"He has a little bit of heat and quite a bit of swelling in his near-fore tendon. It has been scanned and he has about a 5 or 6 per cent injury to the tendon," Little said. "A lot of these horses don't make it back so it's quite a severe injury in the sense there is no such thing as a good tendon injury.
"The amount of damage is quite small, there's 95 to 97 per cent of the tendon still intact so hopefully we can rehabilitate him but these things take a long time, up to a year."
The winner of 12 of his 26 starts and nearly A$3.8 million ($4.37 million) in prizemoney, El Segundo atoned for his nose second to Fields Of Omagh in the 2006 Cox Plate with a comprehensive victory in Australasia's weight-for-age championship last spring.
When asked about the possibility of El Segundo returning in time for another Cox Plate assault in October, Little said he held out little hope.
He said he expected El Segundo to need at least six months rest before any thought could be given to a comeback.
