Leading festival hope The Big Getaway likely to miss rest of season after injury

Exciting novice chaser The Big Getaway looks set to miss the remainder of the season after suffering a fracture to his hock but trainer Willie Mullins is upbeat about the seven-year-old making a full recovery from the setback.

A wide-margin winner of a Leopardstown beginners' chase over Christmas, the Joe and Marie Donnelly-owned seven-year-old had been among the leading contenders for a variety of top-level novice chases at the Cheltenham Festival, but did not feature among the entries on Wednesday.

The Big Getaway established himself as a high-class novice hurdler last season, claiming third behind Envoi Allen and Easywork in the 2020 Ballymore Novices' Hurdle, and Mullins admitted his disappointment at the talented chaser's likely absence for the rest of the current campaign.