Brilliant mare The Orange Agent is once again confined to her box with injury and her season is over before it even began.

The six-time Group 1 winner went sore while jogging in preparation for a new campaign and was subsequently diagnosed with a fractured hind cannon bone.

She was initially diagnosed with a hairline fracture after a successful Australian campaign in May which netted her Group 1 spoils in the Queen of the Pacific.

After a few months of convalescence in a box back home in Clevedon, she was brought back in to work with the aim of having her ready for the biggest mares’ race on the calendar, the Queen of Hearts at Alexandra Park in December.

But things rapidly came unstuck.

“She hadn’t even got back to the fast work stage and she went lame,” said co-trainer Brian Hughes.

“We ended up sending her to Massey University (Palmerston North) for a CT Scan and it picked up the fracture.

“It hadn’t healed from when she initially did it.

“So they’ve put an inch-long screw in the leg and she’s back confined to a box.”

Recovery time isn’t exact, but Hughes said the rehabilitation, before she can begin work again, is comfortably three to four months.

The Orange Agent, a big, powerful daughter of American Ideal, is no stranger to the injury ward.

She missed 14 months between January 2016 and March of this year after fracturing her tibia bone, an unusual injury in standardbreds.

She is brilliant at her best, having won 23 of 33 lifetime starts for just shy of $750,000 in stakes.

Her absence will mean the Queen of Hearts becomes a match race between the Mark Purdon and Natalie Rasmussen-trained pair of Dream About Me and Piccadilly Princess with local hope Better B Amazed also a key player.