Racing: Irish-trained Kicking King, winner of the 2005 Cheltenham Gold Cup, has been ruled out for the season.
Tom Taaffe's eight-year-old has been sidelined since sustaining a tendon injury when winning the King George VI Chase at Sandown last Christmas.
Taaffe confirmed the six-time Grade One winner has aggravated the problem in training and will not be seen this term.
He said: "He is going to miss the rest of the season. We will take a view over the summer months regarding his racing career for the future."
Taaffe continued: "It's a recurrence of the same tendon injury he suffered last year.
"Only the other day everything seemed on target for his comeback but every day is a good day in a horse's life (when they are sound).
"We'll just have to grin and bear it. It's not a bad injury but it is bad enough that he will miss the rest of this year.
"He will now have to come back from two setbacks and we don't owe it to the horse to be hurting him.
"His last race was the King George and we have some fantastic memories already. We will decide in the summer if that will be his last race."
Kicking King was a 4-1 chance for the Gold Cup with Ladbrokes and his removal from ante-post lists leaves last weekend's Tingle Creek winner Kauto Star as the 11-4 favourite, while totesport make him a 9-4 chance.