Racing: Mogul plan on ice

SURGERY on Mighty Mogul, which was due to take place yesterday, has been postponed while connections of the injured former Champion Hurdle favourite seek a second opinion.

X-ray photographs of the gelding's off-fore knee, which was fractured and chipped at Cheltenham on Saturday, have been sent to a vet in Lexington, Kentucky.

A spokesman at the stable of Mighty Mogul's trainer, David Nicholson, said: 'Plates have been sent to the United States. Mighty Mogul will now have the operation within the next 72 hours.'

Halkopous, who briefly assumed the favourite's role for the Champion after Mighty Mogul's injury, also underwent examination yesterday after his flop in the Irish Champion Hurdle on Sunday.

'He is still in Ireland having a few more tests done and returns on Thursday,' Mark Tompkins, his trainer, said. 'He's fine now and ate up overnight. It seems to have been just a bad run. I am still very hopeful about the Champion. Like Staunch Friend (his other leading hurdler, beaten in Italy last week) he will go straight to Cheltenham. It's been a bad January for me.'