A shattered Garry Edwards has scratched pre-post favourite Double Twist from Saturday night's Group 1 Sportingbet Paws Of Thunder after tearing a back muscle.
Edwards said he noticed bruising on the inside of Double Twist's leg this morning.
"She was showing no signs of lameness at all but I knew the bruising wasn't a good sign and suspected she had injured her back muscle," he said.
"So I booked her into see my vet Linda Corney straight away and she confirmed Double Twist has a tear in her back muscle.
"She will have a month off to let the tear heal from inside to outside and then she can progress to walking for a month and then jogging so it will be around three months before I'll be able to gallop her.
"I am totally devastated. She has never been going better and had a perfect preparation leading into the Paws Of Thunder series and had drawn well for the final after a dominant heat win.
"But I have had a good run with her. She has only had a couple of minor injuries in her career and she will make it back to the track so it could have been a lot worse."
Edwards said he is a little mystified as to when and how the injury occurred.
"I can't really say for sure when it happened because she hasn't been lame and even this morning she was showing no discomfort," he said.
"I hand-slipped her on Tuesday so whether or not she did it then I'm not sure but it was only a 200m free gallop.
"You couldn't see the bruise at all from behind, it was only that I decided to give her a bit of magnetic field therapy this morning and I noticed the bruise.
"Even when Linda examined her this morning she could find no signs of soreness, but the bruising is there and the hole is there so we just have to take her along step-by-step."
The scratching throws further intrigue into the race as the reserves Punch One Out and Peter Rocket will now go into the ballot for boxes three, five and seven on Saturday morning.
