RACING: Ned Kelly, one of Ireland's top hopes for the Smurfit Champion Hurdle, will miss the rest of the season.
The AIG winner was found to be lame after his sole start this term in the Hatton's Grace Hurdle at Fairyhouse and time has been called on the current campaign.
"He has gone home and his season is finished. It's disappointing for everyone. He had never taken a lame step in his life before," trainer Edward O'Grady said yesterday.
The John Magnier-owned Ned Kelly, a half brother to the ill-fated Nick Dundee, missed out on last year's Cheltenham on the eve of the festival.
He was generally quoted at 14 to 1 to lift the hurdlers championship in March until lameness intervened.
Ned Kelly had been an intended starter in the Evening Herald December Festival Hurdle on the last day of Leopardstown's Christmas meeting.
Just 11 currently remain among the advance entries for that race headed by the Supreme Novices' winner Like-A-Butterfly and Scottish Memories who ran second to Limestone Lad in the Hatton's Grace Hurdle at Fairyhouse at the start of the month.
The Turf Club are scaling down the emergency testing measures into the morphine problem that has plagued racing in the last few weeks.
The only positive sample since the start of the month was a horse placed second at Punchestown two weeks ago and confirmation came through yesterday that all the horses tested at Thurles on Wednesday were clear.
"It appears the worst may be over. We were testing the first and second in every race but we will be stopping the testing of the second placed horses at the weekend," said the Turf Club chief executive Denis Egan.
The source of the problem has not yet been pin-pointed except that it comes in a food stuff or in tonic form.
The results of nine samples that have been sent to France for independent examination won't be known until early January.
Egan added: "We would hope to have the results of samples taken at the Christmas meetings within 48 hours or as quickly as is possible."
Thurles tomorrow hosts a card that can fairly be described as bread and butter and with eight races there is a lot of it.
It's hard to be too confident about anything but maybe Poulakerry and Rupununi can provide the answers in the divisions of the maiden hurdle.
Trainer Edward O'Grady, whose star hurdler Ned Kelly will miss the Champion Hurdle due to a long-term injury.
