From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishput the skids under somethingput the skids under somethingBritish English informalFAIL to make it likely or certain that something will fail The recession put the skids under his plans for starting a new business. → skid
Examples from the Corpus
put the skids under something• The paint that puts the skids under barnacles is being adopted by Porter International for protective coatings in the United States. 