'I knew we were in trouble straight away' - Emmet Mullins star Slate Lane suffers career-ending injury

The hugely progressive Slate Lane will not run again after suffering a career-ending injury while winning the valuable Betfair "Serial Winners' Stayers" Handicap Hurdle at Haydock on Saturday.

The Paul Byrne-owned five-year-old was completing a four-timer having previously won at Cartmel, Bangor and Newton Abbot, but Emmet Mullins has revealed he sustained a tendon injury after striking into himself during the contest and will not see a racetrack again.

Mullins said: "It's a fairly serious injury. He struck into himself, a hind leg into a front tendon.

"I suppose through a bit of experience and seeing it once before a few years ago, I knew in the parade ring when I saw his leg and saw a bit of bubbling and frothing coming from the tendon, that the tendon sheath was compromised. I knew we were in trouble straight away.

"He's not completely out of the woods yet. He's had surgery and they have flushed the joint. We've done everything we can for him at this point and it's a case of trying to keep any infection at bay for the next week or so. Once we can do that he should survive, but he has sectioned 50 per cent out of his tendon so the tendon won't grow back unfortunately. It looks career-ending."

Emmet Mullins: "There would have been races we could have dreamed about had he kept on improving the way he was"Credit: Patrick McCann (racingpost.com/photos)

Mullins said the celebrations of landing another big British pot, six weeks after taking the Cesarewitch with The Shunter, were shortlived as he knew immediately after being interviewed live on ITV that the injury sustained by Slate Lane was a serious one.

The trainer said: "I did an interview with Matt Chapman on ITV and straight after it I turned around and saw the cut on the horse's leg, before I even got to his tail, and I nearly puked.

"Looking back on the race I would be fairly sure he didn't do the injury at the last, or the second-last. It was possibly further back. It's fairly unbelievable that he still managed to get to the line in front.

"He's in a cast now to support the injury and yet he was still able to gallop the whole way to the line on Saturday. It's unbelievable really."

Mullins was predicting a very bright future for Slate Lane and pointed out the fact he was still a novice over hurdles for the rest of the season.

He said: "He was still only a novice and there would have been races we could have dreamed about had he kept on improving the way he was."

Slate Lane won all four of his starts for Mullins, having joined him from the Paul Hennessy stable, and might have developed into a leading Albert Bartlett contender had injury not cut short his career.

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