British trainer John Gosden’s brilliant mare The Fugue has run her last race due to injury.
The five-year-old broke the track record in the Prince of Wales’s Stakes at Royal Ascot only last month, beating last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf winner Magician and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe heroine Treve in the process.
She was sent off favourite to follow up in the Coral-Eclipse at Sandown last Saturday but was always towards the rear of the field and never got involved, trailing home in sixth place.
Initial reports were that she had returned home unscathed but connections have been dealt a blow with the discovery of an injury to her near-fore.
Owned by musical impresario and composer Andrew Lloyd-Webber, the daughter of Dansili won six of her 17 starts, earning just short of STG2million ($A3.6million) in prizemoney.
Other career highlights included victories in the 2012 Nassau Stakes at Glorious Goodwood, when Richard Hughes rode as Buick opted for stablemate Izzi Top, and last season’s Yorkshire Oaks and Irish Champion Stakes.
She was beaten half a length by Magician at Santa Anita and the following month was agonisingly denied again when three-quarters of a length behind Dominant in the Hong Kong Vase.
