Sir Gino has been ruled out Saturday's William Hill Best Odds Guaranteed Game Spirit Chase.
Nicky Henderson's charge was due to have his second run over fences in the Newbury feature. He's already a strong favourite for the My Pension Expert Arkle at Cheltenham off the back of his sparkling chasing debut success at Kempton over Christmas.
However connections are now working out a different route to the Festival next month.
In a statement posted on X on Friday morning the trainer said: "Regrettably Sir Gino will be unable to run at Newbury tomorrow as he has sustained a small wound to the inside of his near hind leg which is sore, it must have occurred during routine exercise yesterday and although he is less sore this morning than last night I am afraid it will not be completely cleared by Saturday.
"We anticipate that he will be back to normal by the beginning of next week so the timing is very unfortunate. This will leave us with a dilemma where to go in order to get another run before the Arkle. The Pendle at Kempton would be an option although it is over two-and-a-half miles which is not ideal. There are very few alternatives except for a newly created two mile novice at Bangor on 26th February but that is getting horribly close to Cheltenham."
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