Technician, winner of last season’s Group 1 Prix Royal-Oak for trainer Martyn Meade, has been retired after suffering a career-ending injury in Thursday’s Ascot Gold Cup.
Sent off the 4-1 second favourite behind Stradivarius, Technician was a beaten force entering the straight and ultimately wound up seventh of the eight runners, beaten 30 lengths by the winner.
“After the race we found out he’d suffered a tendon injury, and I’m afraid it’s career-threatening, so we’ve decided he will be retired,” Meade told Press Association Sport.
“His run was so inexplicable – he had absolutely perfect conditions, and I was expecting a big run. It’s so disappointing. It shows what a good horse he was to run on with that injury – it’s bad.
“There’s no future trying to repair it, so we’ll have to make alternative plans for him now. Hopefully he can go to stud, but I’m afraid that will be his last race.
“We knew something was wrong, because that wasn’t like him at all. Usually he battles on – and with conditions right, something had to be affecting him. Clearly he must have twisted badly, and that was it.”
Technician made rapid progress as a three-year-old last season for connections. After breaking his maiden easily at Leicester, he changed hands to Team Valor and proceeded to justify that decision with victories in the Listed Prix Ridgway, Group 3 Geoffrey Freer Stakes and Group 2 Prix Chaudenay prior to his Group 1 breakthrough in the Prix Royal-Oak, in which he lowered the colours of older rivals Call The Wind and Holdthasigreen.
Bought for €40,000 as a Goffs Orby yearling by Dermot Farrington, Technician is one of 14 Group 1 winners by Mastercraftsman and was bred by Barronstown Stud out of Arosa, a stakes-winning Sadler’s Wells sister to Group 2 winner Crimson Tide.
