The heavily-backed Irish Melbourne Cup entrant Profound Beauty is being treated for a bruised foot which has caused her to miss two days of exercise this week.The Dermot Weld-trained mare suffered the problem, described by her handler as "low-level bruising", when she spread a shoe in her stall at the Sandown racecourse quarantine centre on Tuesday night.Weld's travelling foreman David Phillips said he and the veterinarians who treated Profound Beauty expected the problem to have run its course

The heavily-backed Irish Melbourne Cup entrant Profound Beauty is being treated for a bruised foot which has caused her to miss two days of exercise this week.

The Dermot Weld-trained mare suffered the problem, described by her handler as "low-level bruising", when she spread a shoe in her stall at the Sandown racecourse quarantine centre on Tuesday night.

Weld's travelling foreman David Phillips said he and the veterinarians who treated Profound Beauty expected the problem to have run its course by Friday morning.

"We've got a poultice on for the rest of the day," Phillips said.

"We'll take that off first thing tomorrow morning and have a look.

"But it's only a slight bruise, there isn't any pulse to it."

Phillips, a vet and Racing Victoria's head farrier Peter Strafford spent several hours on Thursday morning bathing the foot in iced water and then soaking it in a solution of Epsom salts before applying a poultice.

She was then returned to her box without going onto the training track.

Profound Beauty arrived in Melbourne on Saturday afternoon and had made a quick recovery from the 36-hour trip from Ireland.

She walked the track on Monday and again on Tuesday and had been due to canter on Wednesday when the injury was discovered.

While any setback to a Melbourne Cup campaign is a negative, Phillips was confident the mare wouldn't be disadvantaged.

"We're hopeful of getting a set of tack on her tomorrow and bringing her out for a bit of a walk and a jog," he said.

"If we can do that we'll be happy.

"If we can't we have to wait another 24 hours and repeat the treatment."

It is likely Profound Beauty caused the injury herself by stepping on the off-fore plate and catching an edge as she moved around her stall.

Weld is the only European-based trainer to win the Melbourne Cup, having been successful with Vintage Crop in 1993 and Media Puzzle in 2002.

But he has also had his share of bad luck.

Vintage Crop slashed his shoulder on a piece of aluminium rail when preparing for his second Cup in 1994 and Vinnie Roe failed to settle in when he made his first attempt in 2002.

Another of his Australian runners, In Time's Eye, broke down after running in the 2003 Caulfield Cup.