British hope Away He Goes ruled out of Melbourne Cup with tendon injury

British contender Away He Goes, one of the leading fancies for the Lexus Melbourne Cup, has been ruled out of next week's race after suffering a tendon injury at the Werribee International Facility on Wednesday.

The five-year-old had been a general 14-1 chance to provide trainer Ismail Mohammed with the biggest win of his career, but will not take his chance having been found to have suffered the injury when jockey James McDonald arrived at Werribee to have his first sit on the gelding.

Away He Goes had previously finished second to Trueshan in the Goodwood Cup before running respectably in the Ebor at York on his last start in Britain, and arrived on the second shipment of imports for this year's Spring Carnival having passed all of his pre-travel scans.

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Mohammed said: "I got the bad news this morning. After his work last night they checked the horse's legs and he must have hit himself as he's not 100 per cent sound. We decided to pull the horse before the race.

"It wasn't easy to get to Australia with a horse and work-rider having to quarantine for two weeks, but what can we say? It's the sport, we have to enjoy and take the bad luck for us on the way too."

Ismail Mohammed: trainer hopes he could have another crack at the Melbourne Cup with Away He Goes next yearCredit: Edward Whitaker

Despite Away He Goes missing this year's running, Mohammed is not ruling out another possible tilt at the race next year, with the Dubai Gold Cup, in which he finished third in March, an early-season target should he recover from his injury in time.

The trainer added: "This morning he was much better from yesterday, so we'll take him back to Dubai and hopefully run him on World Cup night. He's still young and hasn't run that much, so he has a good future ahead of him.

"We will try for next year and we'll never stop, maybe we can find different horses to go there too. We need to go to everywhere across the world and prove ourselves as a yard."

The absence of Away He Goes leaves only two British and Irish contenders in the Melbourne Cup – the Andrew Balding-trained Spanish Mission and last year's winner Twilight Payment – with Incentivise heading the market for the race, which takes place at 4am GMT at Flemington on November 2.

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Those two and fellow Melbourne Cup import Sir Lucan underwent mandatory x-rays on Tuesday and should concerns arise from them, will undergo a CT scan on Thursday after the vital part to get the scanner working again arrived in Melbourne.

The malfunction had left 16 Melbourne Cup hopefuls in limbo, but the part arrived in Sydney on Wednesday and has subsequently made its way to Werribee.

Horses must undergo the CT scan by Thursday due to the sedation required, which must be out of their system by raceday.

Read more on the Spring Carnival:

'It's really special' - British rider set for Melbourne Cup debut on Pondus

'It was an anxious wait' - State Of Rest survives inquiry drama to win Cox Plate

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