Trainer Roger Varian may turn his attention to York’s Juddmonte International with Postponed after being forced to skip the upcoming King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot.

Postponed was expected to make a bold bid to repeat last year’s success in the Group 1 mile-and-a-half contest but a respiratory infection put paid to those plans.

Varian felt his charge was not at his best during a piece of work at home on Wednesday morning and a subsequent scope duly revealed the infection.

He made a swift call to sidestep Ascot this weekend, insisting it would be unfair to ask the triple Group 1 winner to run his race given his condition.

“It’s like humans. You can feel all right with a lung infection until your lungs start burning, then you can forget it.

It’s the right decision,” Varian told the Daily Telegraph. “If you run them when they are sick, they take longer to recover.”

The trainer is not however expecting the problem to sideline Postponed for any significant period of time.

The Juddmonte International at York is now considered a live possibility and Varian says that keeping the horse out of Saturday’s Ascot race will ensure he does not require a longer recovery period from his infection.

Despite that, he admitted that it was with a heavy heart he made the call to withdraw from the race.

“It’s heartbreaking, particularly when you ask yourself how many times you might train the odds-on favourite for a King George,” said the trainer.

“But, as bad as we feel and as disappointed as we are, it’s only a fraction of the disappointment we would have felt on Saturday if he had run like half the horse.”

Postponed is 4.00 to win the Juddmonte International on August 17.