Neon Wolf, last season's Neptune Novices' Hurdle runner-up at the Cheltenham Festival, has suffered a fatal injury, said trainer Harry Fry.
The six-year-old gelding could not be saved after a “freak accident in his stable”.
The Dorset trainer told www.harryfryracing.com: “He had the potential to go right to the top and it is hard to come to terms with the fact that he has gone having suffered a complete laceration of his right hind-limb deep digital flexor tendon.
“It is a dreadful blow to his owners the Masterson family and all of the team here at Seaborough.
“We all shared such high hopes and dreams for Neon Wolf, who came tantalising close to success at this year’s Cheltenham Festival in the Neptune Novices’ Hurdle.
“A big, imposing fluent jumper who started his career in an Irish point-to-point, he was a horse who had everything you look for in a top-class racehorse.
“Very sadly he will not now get the chance to fulfil the promise he had shown us, he will be irreplaceable.”
Neon Wolf won his first three starts under Rules for Fry, for whom he won the Rossington Main Novices’ Hurdle at Haydock in January.
He then only went down by a head to Willoughby Court on his last outing in the Neptune at the Festival in March.
