Multiple Group 1 winner Manduro will not race again after sustaining an injury during his victory in the Prix Foy Gray d’Albion Barriere (Fr-G2) on Sunday at Longchamp.
Unbeaten in his last five races, the five-year-old Monsun horse, trained by Andre Fabre, was being prepared for next month's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (Fr-G1).
“It's desperately sad and we are all devastated. He's had a very comfortable night,” Paul Harley, racing manager to owner Baron Georg Von Ullmann, told Racing Post.
“Unfortunately, ten minutes after the race he became lame and he was taken to see the specialists.”
Manduro won ten of his 18 starts and finished second or third on seven occasions with $1,990,563 in earnings. He was a perfect five-for-five this year, with victories in the Weatherby’s Earl of Sefton Stakes (Eng-G3), the Prix d’Ispahan (Fr-G1), the Prince of Wales’s Stakes (Eng-G1), and the Prix du Haras du Fresnay-Le-Buffard-Jacques le Marois (Fr-G1).
Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum acquired the breeding rights to Manduro from von Ullmann earlier this summer.
On Monday, leading Newmarket-based veterinary surgeon Ian Wright performed surgery on the horse, who suffered a fracture to his off-hind cannon bone during his victory over Mandesha on Sunday.
“It does appear not to be life-threatening but it does appear to be the end of his racing career,” Harley told At The Races. “We have no idea where the injury was sustained but unfortunately these things happen and they always seem to happen to the good ones.
“He's always been a very sound horse. Early in his three-year-old career, he had a few little niggly problems but nothing serious. The Baron is absolutely gutted. He hasn't made it to the office [Monday] morning. He's absolutely devastated and cannot put it into words.”
Fabre on Monday called the three time Group 1 winner superior to every one of his past champions, including Peintre Celebre.
"It is a common thing for trainers to talk about the best horse they have trained, but Manduro was the best horse I have trained—and the best by a good margin,” he told Racing Post. "With him, nothing seemed impossible. He was a very touching animal. His attitude, his conformation, everything about him was exceptional.”
Harley said the horse now will go to Sheikh Mohammed’s Dalham Hall Stud for the 2008 season.
“I'm sure he'll be as great a success as a stallion as he was as a racehorse," Harley said.