Hong Kong: Cirrus des Aigles injured

Cirrus des Aigles injured his left foreleg while training on Thursday at Sha Tin Racecourse in Hong Kong and had to be scratched from the Group 1 Hong Kong Cup on Sunday.

The setback was described in a veterinary report from the Hong Kong Jockey Club as a tendon injury. Cirrus des Aigles’s trainer, Corine Barande-Barbe, said the problem was with a ligament. Tendons connect bone to muscle, while ligaments connect bone to bone.

Barande-Barbe said the injury did not appear to be career-threatening. A 6-year-old gelding, Cirrus des Aigles will race on in 2013 if the injury heals over the winter as Barande-Barbe hopes.

Cirrus des Aigles’s scratch extended his long tale of Hong Kong woe: He could finish only fifth in the 2011 Hong Kong Cup and seventh in the 2010 race. France-based Cirrus des Aigles showed that shipping itself is not the problem when he captured the Group 1 Sheema Classic last spring in Dubai.

Cirrus des Aigles emerged from relative obscurity early in 2011 to become one of the best horses in the world. He beat So You Think in the 2011 Champion Stakes at Ascot and, in his most recent start, finished second to Frankel in the 2012 edition of that race.