Ante-post favourite Quito De La Roque has been ruled out of thetote.com Punchestown Gold Cup on Wednesday.
Colm Murphy's eight-year-old made a fantastic start to the season by winning an attritional JNwine.com Champion Chase at Down Royal in November, but he was well beaten into third when sent off favourite for the Lexus Chase at Leopardstown over Christmas.
He subsequently missed both the Hennessy Gold Cup and the Cheltenham Gold Cup as Murphy had not been 100% happy with his charge.
Murphy said: "He scoped badly after the Lexus and then we discovered he had a sinus infection. Unfortunately, he's had a recurrence of the same thing.
"It's obviously really disappointing, but it's nothing that can't be sorted, it's just bad timing.
"I'm not 100% happy with him, so he can't run. He'll probably go out for his summer break now."
