Wandering Eyes

Three-time British champion jockey Silvestre de Sousa wasted no time making a mark on his return to Hong Kong racing, notching up a winner with just his fourth ride. While some jockeys have been forced to wait weeks between winners this season, De Sousa got straight to business on Sunday and is on a mission to prove the doubters wrong, adamant his four-month contract here was “not about stats”. Wiser after completing two stints in Hong Kong previously, De Sousa said it was important... View the full article

Each year Flemington Racecourse plays host to The Melbourne Cup Carnival. The main focus of the Carnival is the $7.3 million Lexus Melbourne Cup which is Australia’s most prestigious competition on the racing calendar, and this year the two-mile contest falls on November 6th. The race is a quality Group 1 handicap for horses three years and older. It is of prime interest to the best trainers in the world where twenty-four horses will go to post. The course is now run over two miles. The 1990 winner Kingston Rule is the current record holder with a time of 3.16.3. The first Melbourne Cup was held in 1861 and holds an important role in horse racing history. With some of the more recent winning names being Prince Of Penzance (2015) who was also the fourth ever horse to win the contest priced at 100-1 and was steered by the first ever lady jockey to win the Melbourne Cup, Australian rider Michelle Payne. Last year son of Irish trainer Aidan O’Brien, Joseph, trained the winner Rekindling who did all the running for owner Llyod Williams making the son of High Chaparral the first three-year-old to win the handicap since Skipton in 1941. The young Irish trainer will not defend the trophy this year as original entry Latrobe will now be redirected to the Seppelt Mackinnon Stakes on the final Saturday of the Spring Carnival on November 10th. Owner Lloyd Williams has won the handicap on a total of six occasions, in the years 1981, 1985, 2007, 2012, 2016 and his horse also took the title up to as recent as last year. In 2016 Almandin who won the Cup narrowly over Heartbreak City. The businessman is eager to continue his good trend with the race. Williams owns the current favourite amongst entries, the four-year-old son of Galileo, Yucatan. Trained by Aidan O’Brien he will be the name racing fans will be eager to watch. Set to be ridden by James Mc Donald the pair have been drawn to race from stall twenty-three. This it seems has caused odds to drop slightly for the favourite. In the last decade, only two horses have won the Melbourne Cup with a draw higher than stall 13. The Ballydoyle based trainer has a strong hand among entries including The Cliffsofmoher and Rostropovich bringing his total of runners to three in the field. The Cliffsofmoher is set to be partnered by stable jockey Ryan Moore. The four-year old’s form has been consistent all season and on his last outing finished third in the hot Group 1 Stella Artois Caulfield Cup, at Caulfield Racecourse last month. Connections will be hopeful his form can improve from this and he will certainly be one to watch on the betting market. Best Solution returned to the winners’ enclosure in that Group 1 contest and he now goes up against Saeed Bin Suroor-trained four-year-old. Rostropovich, who finished fifth behind Winx in the Cox Plate on his latest start, has been drawn in stall 21, while The Cliffsofmoher has been given stall nine. Godolphin-owned Best Solution is set to be ridden by Pat Cosgrave and is certainly an entry not to be overlooked. With a strong performance at Caulfield last month to win the Group 1 Stella Artois Caulfield Cup coupled an extremely impressive form in the latter part of the season, 1111, he will be one punters should keep a close eye on. Magic Circle (Fran Berry) wins the Henry II Stakes SandownIan William’s trained Magic Circle is an important name not to be forgotten and has been most backed by ante-post punters. The connections of the promising six-year-old have secured two-time Melbourne Cup-winning jockey Corey Brown for the ride in the race. The champion jockey will be aiming for a third victory in ‘the race that stops the nation’ following wins with Shocking in 2009 and last year’s triumph on board the O’Brien-trained Rekindling. Charlie Fellowes saddled the first Group winner of his short career with A Prince Of Arran who did all the running to win the Group 3 handicap, the Lexus Stakes at Flemington Racecourse on November 3rd to land his confirmation place among the field in the Melbourne Cup. The margin of half a length did not do justice to the ease with which he won and there was more good news for Fellowes shortly afterwards when Racing Victoria’s chief handicapper Greg Carpenter, in what is always the speediest assessment of his year, decided not to penalise the five-year-old for the race that stops a nation. It means he will line up in the 24-runner Group 1 handicap with 53kg (8st5lbs). A race that is known as one to ‘stop a nation’ it will certainly be for thrilling viewing for racing fans alike. Selection: A Prince Of Arran The post The Melbourne Cup Preview: A Race That Stops A Nation appeared first on RaceBets Blog EN. View the full article

Time Warp turned back the clock to edge out his younger brother while Pakistan Star also got up to his old tricks in a Group Three Sa Sa Ladies’ Purse that left more questions than answers. Since winning the Hong Kong Gold Cup in February, Time Warp had failed to beat a runner home in his three subsequent starts, so this handicap was billed as head-to-head contest between the up-and-coming Glorious Forever and fan favourite Pakistan Star. It turned out to be anything but. The Tony Cruz-... View the full article

First year trainer Jimmy Ting Koon-ho says he is as surprised as anyone that he sits atop the trainers’ championship two months into the season after landing a double at Sha Tin on Sunday to pull clear of Tony Millard. Ting took his tally for the season to 16 on the back of victories to Diamond Master and Smiling Pride and the 45-year-old says he must continue to cash in while his horses are well-rated. “I just keep finding winners. I’m surprised, too. Before the season I didn... View the full article

WERRIBEE, Australia—One man who could be forgiven for being a little bleary-eyed at Sunday’s Lexus Melbourne Cup breakfast press call was Charlie Fellowes, who had enjoyed the biggest win of his career less than 24 hours earlier. Victory for A Prince Of Arran (GB) (Shirocco {Ger}) in the G3 Lexus S. on Victoria Derby Day at Flemington was not just a first Group win for the trainer but it also means he is set to have his first runner in Tuesday’s G1 Lexus Melbourne Cup. For a horse that has run in Dubai, America, Britain and now Australia within the last ten months, A Prince Of Arran continues to take his racing well and the trainer said that he’d pulled out a lot brighter than he did on Sunday—but then the gelding wasn’t cavorting on the dance floor in Club 23 until the small hours. Instead, he ate all of his food, had a good rest and trotted up sound. “At no point was it easy viewing,” admitted Fellowes after Saturday’s race, which was delayed for ten minutes after power was lost on the photo finish camera and a rival contender spread a plate at the starts. “But we know he stays and although he does get lazy in front we knew that if something had come to him he’d pick up again. This is the biggest win of my career, my first Group winner, and this means more than getting into the Cup, though that’s amazing of course and we’ll try to enjoy the next few days and the build-up as much as we can.” The Cup picture changed on Saturday in more ways than one. Red Verdon (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), who had suffered a bruised heel on Wednesday, was scratched from the race during the afternoon by trainer Ed Dunlop. This made way for last year’s fifth-place finisher Nakeeta (GB) (Sixties Icon {GB}), who had been bumped out of the race by A Prince Of Arran, to regain his position in the line-up. Godolphin, who enjoyed a fantastic 24 hours over the weekend at the Breeders’ Cup and at Flemington, where James Cummings had three Group winners on Derby day, will have three runners for three different trainers. The G1 Caulfield Cup winner Best Solution (Ire) (Kodiac {GB}) will effectively carry the first colours for Saeed Bin Suroor’s stable, while the Cummings-trained Avilius (GB) (Pivotal {GB}) will have the white cap and Charlie Appleby’s 3-year-old Cross Counter (GB) (Teofilo {Ire}) has the red. The two ‘international’ contenders from the trio, Cross Counter and Best Solution, were among the first out for an easy canter on the sand track at Werribee on Sunday morning. Cross Counter and his fellow 3-year-old Rostropovich (Ire) (Frankel {GB}) will carry joint-bottom weight of 51kg and, like last year’s winner Rekindling (GB) (High Chaparral {Ire}), both are considered 4-year-olds by southern hemisphere time. While Rostropovich took his lead around Werribee from his older stablemate Idaho (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}), his two fellow Ballydoyle runners in the Cup, the enigmatic Yucatan (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) and Thecliffsofmoher (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) paired up for an easy spin, with Yucatan out in front and moving very easily. At Epsom and Ascot this summer he has played the whipper-in role in the Coronation Cup and the Wolferton S., but Yucatan’s sole Australian start, when eased down to stroll across the line for a facile G2 Herbert Power S. victory, means that he approaches Tuesday as the short-priced favourite and has James McDonald as partner. Nick Williams, part-owner of both Yucatan and Thecliffsofmoher and seeking a third consecutive victory in the race, explained that the decision to have Ballydoyle’s retained jockey Ryan Moore on the latter is merely because he knows Thecliffsofmoher well and the horse is considered to be less straightforward than his stablemate. Williams also urged the groundsmen to turn on the taps at Flemington after fast ground for Derby day but his wish may be granted by a higher power as it’s set to rain in Melbourne midway through Monday and into Cup day. One horse who will cope well if the ground eases is Marmelo (GB) (Duke Of Marmalade {Ire}), who was the Cup favourite 12 months ago and finished ninth. Ed and Christabel Goodwin’s homebred, who now has several Australian partners involved in his ownership, could not have looked more content as he trotted around Werribee like a dressage horse under Tom Perry on Sunday morning before enjoying a steady canter on the grass. He has Winx’s jockey Hugh Bowman booked again, as well as a plum draw in gate 10. “I think the horse learned something last year, and so did we,” said trainer Hughie Morrison. “Everywhere he’s been this year, whether it’s quarantine, aeroplane or here, he’s just more chilled out about everything. It’s good to have a happy horse. Every horse who stays sound and healthy will improve from four to five. His form this year is the same as last year but hopefully he has improved.” Sheikh Hamdan Al Maktoum has already won the Cup twice—with At Talaq (GB) in 1986 and Jeune (GB) eight years later—the former trained by Colin Hayes and Jeune by the his son David. The owner’s challenger this year will race for Britain’s champion trainer John Gosden for the last time as Muntahaa (GB) (Dansili {GB}) is set to remain in Australia at the Hayes family’s Lindsay Park after the Cup. With Gosden in Louisville for the Breeders’ Cup, his son Thady has been overseeing the horse’s training at Werribee and, shortly after watching Enable (GB) win the Breeders’ Cup Turf followed by a disappointing swansong for Roaring Lion in the Classic, Gosden Jr took to the stage with Sheikh Hamdan’s racing manager Angus Gold to discuss the chances of the stable adding to what has been a superb year in Europe by saddling the winner of the Melbourne Cup. He said, “The journey took a little bit out of him but he’s now coming to himself really well and I’d like to think that he’s back to the same sort of form he was in for the Ebor. It’s incredibly exciting to come here. The public involvement in the race is something we don’t have to same extent at home.” Angus Gold added, “He won the Ebor very well, he’s a 5-year-old gelding and he hasn’t got a lot of miles on the clock so it made sense to aim him for Melbourne. We’ve sent horses down to Australia before who wouldn’t have had anything like the class of this horse. “This is a different way of racing. They’ve got to take to it—some of them absolutely thrive and others just don’t take to it all. He either will or he won’t but there’s no point us worrying about it, and jumping from 13 he has plenty of options.” As colourful as the Melbourne Cup Carnival is, it’s fair to say that it has never produced a press conference quite as startling as that staged on Sunday morning once the microphone was pointed at Dr Marwan Koukash. The flamboyant owner had earlier promised that he would take to the winner’s enclosure wearing nothing but a G-string should his Magic Circle (Ire) (Makfi {GB}) win the A$7.3 million race and he appears to be intending to keep his word. “It’s going to happen,” he warned on Sunday morning, before producing a red G-string from his jeans pocket. “It’s not a threat, it’s a promise.” Magic Circle has been seen in action only twice this year when handing out a six-length thrashing to his rivals in the G3 Henry II S. on May 24, just less than a fortnight after he won the Chester Cup. He comes to Melbourne a fresh horse, though perhaps not as fresh as his owner. “I was hoping for a top three finish but to do what he did against Group horses, not handicappers, took us by surprise,” admitted Koukash. “That’s when we started thinking that not only did we have a horse who could run in the Melbourne Cup but one that could go there with a serious chance. “I’ve gone on record many times saying that there are only two Cups I’d love to win—one is the Chester Cup and the other is the Melbourne Cup. I’m not being disrespectful to Royal Ascot but the Melbourne Cup Carnival is the greatest show on earth and you’d have to be a miserable bastard not to enjoy being here.” Eyeing his owner slightly warily as he sat alongside, trainer Ian Williams, pointing at the Melbourne Cup positioned tantalisingly close to the podium, said, “Who cares what Marwan does, I just want to get my hands on that big boy.” He continued, “I think this horse is a very, very competitive stayer. He’s certainly got the stamina but what he also has is an incredible turn of foot. We’ve been criticised for not running him more this season but we wanted to keep him for here. It’s been quite a revelation with him—back home he got a little bit quiet and just accepted his work but once he went into quarantine he was like a 2-year-old again and since he’s been out here he’s been wild, not dissimilar to how Marwan behaves.” Taking his cue, Koukash insisted on the last word. “I’ve been training for the last six months and I am now a lot more desirable,” he said. “I’ve lost 25kgs and I actually do look good in my G-string. When I look at myself in the mirror now I quite fancy myself. I think my wife thinks I won’t do it and she’ll probably divorce me but it’s a lot easier finding a new wife than it is to win the Melbourne Cup.” View the full article

Accelerate rallied in the far turn, out-dueled Thunder Snow in the stretch, and had enough to hold off a late move by Gunnevera to win the $6 million Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) Nov. 3 at Churchill Downs. View the full article

For about five-sixteenths of a mile in the $200,000 Golden State Juvenile Nov. 3 at Santa Anita Park, two California-bred colts who could end up making noise down the line against any kind of competition engaged in a battle to the wire. View the full article

Capped by a picture-perfect fall day at Churchill Downs, the 35th Breeders’ Cup World Championships recorded total handle of $157,445,841 for the two-day event held Nov. 2-3. The figure was the fifth-highest since the Breeders’ Cup went to a two-day format in 2007. Total handle for Saturday’s nine championship races was $96,018,060, a 4% decrease from last year. Common-pool handle on Saturday’s 12-race Breeders’ Cup card was $105,229,197. Churchill was hosting the Breeders’ Cup for the ninth time. Saturday’s attendance was 70,423, bringing the two-day total to 112,672. It was the third-largest attendance in Breeders’ Cup history, topped only by 118,484 in 2016 at Santa Anita and 114,353 in 2010 at Churchill. “Once again the Breeders’ Cup proved a fitting showcase for world championship performances and the best in international racing,” said Breeders’ Cup President and CEO Craig Fravel. “We want to thank our gracious hosts from Churchill Downs, the greater Louisville community, our fans around the world as well the owners and breeders who participate in our racing programs for an incredible week capped by two extraordinary days of racing.” The Breeders’ Cup has already announced it will return to Santa Anita in 2019, Keeneland in 2020, and Del Mar in 2021. View the full article

Accelerate rallied in the far turn, out-dueled Thunder Snow in the stretch, and had enough to hold off a late move by Gunnevera to win the $6 million Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) Nov. 3 at Churchill Downs. View the full article

The Breeders’ Cup rarely disappoints and the 2018 edition was no exception. From the start on Friday through John Sadler’s cathartic win with Accelerate (Lookin At Lucky) in the GI Breeders’ Cup Classic, there seemed to be unforgettable moment after unforgettable moment. But 25 years from now, when they are running the Breeders’ Cup for the 60th time, this year will be remembered as the year of Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}). How can it not be? We had never seen a horse pull off the G1 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe-GI Breeders’ Cup Turf double, which wasn’t exactly a surprise. To do so, you have to run the race of your life against the very best in Europe, come back four weeks later, ship across the ocean and, again, put in a sensational effort against the best turf horses from two continents. Eight horses had tried prior to Saturday’s Turf and all eight had returned home without a Breeders’ Cup trophy. We came to learn over the years that only an exceptional horse could do this, and Enable is an exceptional horse. She won the Arc last year, as well, but had had a long campaign and trainer John Gosden and her owner, Juddmonte Farms, decided not to send her to the Breeders’ Cup. The story was different this year. In May, it was announced that Enable had suffered a setback in training and would not return until the late summer. Her first start of 2018 came in a modest spot, the G3 September S. on the all-weather surface at Kempton. But that race set her up for a return trip to the Arc, and she won again, bravely holding off a late rally from Sea Of Class (Ire) (Sea The Stars {Ire}). The Arc was just her second start of the year, which meant that Gosden, unlike last year, had a fresh horse for the Breeders’ Cup. Everyone knew that Enable was talented. Yesterday, we learned she is a fighter. Jockey Frankie Dettori said she was “spinning her wheels” until he got her out into the middle of the turf course where he believed the footing was better. Seven or eighth paths off the rail, she hooked Magical (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) at the top of the stretch and both fillies battled hard to the wire. Enable just battled a little harder. “It was a big ask of the filly as everyone knows she has had a difficult year,” Gosden said. “She didn’t quite come here in the form she would have come with last year. It was a tough race, but she did it. It was a wonderful stretch run between two great fillies and two great jockeys [Dettori and Ryan Moore] and we came out on top. Full marks to the filly. She’s been very brave and mentally very strong to get herself here. She did it today with sheer guts and determination.” Magical, a 3-year-old filly, also ran a winning race as she finished nine lengths in front of the third-place finisher Sadler’s Joy (Kitten’s Joy). Not that anyone needed convincing, but Gosden also proved what a gifted horsemen he is, having guided Enable through a difficult season, one that ended with wins in two of the biggest turf races run on the globe. But he’s been doing this for a long time, so long that he won a race on the first ever Breeders’ Cup Day card way back in 1984 at a racetrack that will soon be a football stadium. He won the inaugural GI Breeders’ Cup Mile, run at Hollywood Park, with Royal Heroine (Ire) (Lypheor {GB}). Despite the giddy nature of the prior 600 words I have written, Enable will not get my Eclipse Award vote for champion turf filly or mare. That would be terribly unfair to Sistercharlie (Ire) (Myboycharlie {Ire}). With her win yesterday in the GI Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf, she has won four Grade I races this year, all of them on U.S. soil. She shouldn’t be overtaken by a horse who raced just once this year in this country. The other big story yesterday, of course, was Accelerate. You had to feel good for the classy John Sadler, who was in the spotlight all week for all the wrong reasons. His 0 for 41 record in the Breeders’ Cup was one of the biggest stories of the week and Sadler had to hear about it over and over again. He handled it with dignity and never got ruffled. As the day went on, you really were starting to believe that someone out there had a Sadler voodoo doll and was sticking pins in it. Selcourt (Tiz Wonderful) looked like a strong contender in the GI Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Sprint and finished 12th. On paper, Catalina Cruiser (Union Rags) looked like he couldn’t lose in the GI Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile. He ran sixth. Sadler fared much better in the Mile where Catapult (Kitten’s Joy) was second. Still, it was another loser and Sadler went into the Classic at 0 for 44. Though winning the Classic, Accelerate will still go down as one of the unluckier horses in recent times. In virtually any other year he would have been a unanimous choice for Horse of the Year. This year, there’s very little chance that he will win out over Triple Crown winner Justify (Scat Daddy). It was also a remarkable day for Peter Miller, who had two winners, both of them repeat winners in the Breeders’ Cup. That’s not easy to do, but Stormy Liberal (Stormy Atlantic) won the GI Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint for the second straight year and Roy H (More Than Ready) did the same in the GI Breeders’ Cup Sprint. What was also notable about this Breeders’ Cup is that it shed further light on the divide between the haves and have nots in horse racing. The “little guys” never stood a chance. The tone was set when the very first winner, Bulletin (City Zip), won the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint for Todd Pletcher and the ownership group of WinStar Farm LLC, China Horse Club and SF Racing LLC. We saw two wins by Juddmonte, one from Godolphin, Seth Klarman, Peter Brant, Gary and Mary West and Sol Kumin and partners. On the trainer front, Chad Brown won twice and other winners included Charlie Appleby, Bob Baffert, Michael Stoute, Mark Casse and Gosden. This was not a Breeders’ Cup for the Uriah St. Lewises of the world. It will be hard for the 2019 Breeders’ Cup to top this one, but it might just find a way. How about Enable coming back after winning her third straight Arc and going for her second straight Turf? One can always dream, can’t they. View the full article

Painting Corners seemed to put away the entire Senator Ken Maddy (G3T) field as she sprinted into the stretch Nov. 3 at Santa Anita Park, but could not hold off Storm the Hill in the final furlong. View the full article

Sent out as the even-money favorite in the Chilukki Stakes (G2) Nov. 3 at Churchill Downs, Divine Miss Grey made short work of the five-horse field of older fillies and mares and completed the one-mile test in 1:36.64. View the full article

Irad Ortiz Jr., who won two races and finished in the top four in five other races from 13 mounts, won the 16th Bill Shoemaker Award, given to the most outstanding jockey of the World Championships hosted by Churchill Downs. View the full article

Irad Ortiz Jr., winner of a pair of races and in the top four in five other races from 13 mounts, won the 16th Bill Shoemaker Award, given to the leading of the World Championships hosted by Churchill Downs. The Shoemaker Award is based on a 10-4-2-1 scoring system on first- through fourth-place finishes in each of the 14 Breeders’ Cup World Championship races. Ortiz collected 35 points, edging Joel Rosario (32) and Javier Castellano (30). Castellano collected the award at Del Mar in 2017. Ortiz’s victories were registered aboard Newspaperofrecord (Ire) in Friday’s GI Juvenile Fillies Turf and Shamrock Rose in Saturday’s GI Filly & Mare Sprint. He finished second three times–Uncle Benny (Juvenile Turf), World of Trouble (Turf Sprint) and Gunnevera (Classic). He also had one third-place finish with Analyze It in the Mile and a fourth with Firenze Fire in the Dirt Mile. Rosario rode three winners during the two-day series: Accelerate (Classic); Game Winner (Juvenile) and Jaywalk (Juvenile Fillies). He also had a third-place finish in the Turf Sprint on Disco Partner. The Shoemaker Award is named in honor of legendary horseman Bill Shoemaker, who captured the Kentucky Derby four times, won over 8,800 races in a career that spanned over four decades 40 years. In 1987, at age 56, Shoemaker won the Breeders’ Cup Classic aboard Ferdinand at Hollywood Park. View the full article

LOUISVILLE, Kentucky—Strictly in terms of turf racing, we all know that the grass tends to be a little greener in Europe. But if the raiders played to their strengths at the 35th Breeders’ Cup, duly extending a prolific record in both the Mile and the Turf, it sure helps if you have an operation like Juddmonte seeding the herd. For if an unmistakable and effusive common denominator to Enable (GB) (Nathaniel {Ire}) and Expert Eye (GB) (Acclamation {GB}) was one of the great international riders of the era, this was sooner about the man whose silks were worn by Frankie Dettori. Prince Khaled Abdullah has had too many great champions already for Enable to be described as a crowning achievement. As a fourth generation homebred, however, she is certainly an apt symbol of the immense resources—both financial and cerebral—he has invested in building some of the modern breed’s most important families. His legacy, in those terms, has been long assured. But longevity permits him to be assured, time and again, how valued is his contribution—and not only among the sundry expert eyes who represented him in the winner’s circle, but among all of us who have had our imagination captured, over the years, by the likes of Frankel (GB) (Galileo {Ire}), Dancing Brave (Lyphard) or (just as a reminder that his men know how to buy horses, as well as breed them) Arrogate (Unbridled’s Song). “The likes” of Frankel! A term to be used advisedly. Enable, however, added her name to the Juddmonte legends with a performance that, much like the one that secured her second Arc in Paris last month, owed everything to the fact that her courage is commensurate with her class. When Magical (Ire) (Galileo {Ire}) threw down the gauntlet at the top of the stretch, Enable tore off her gloves and hauled a flourishing rival nine lengths clear of their pursuers. The assumption was that Enable might actually improve for her Paris exertions, which followed an interrupted preparation. But the fact is that a lesser trainer might well have struggled to prevent her recoiling from a hard race when short of peak condition. Luckily John Gosden nowadays bestrides his profession in Europe, and his masterly handling of a filly sidelined by injury through two-thirds of the season represented an instructive finishing touch to a vintage season. The objective reality is that he has usurped Sir Michael Stoute as Newmarket’s premier trainer, but his neighbour has rallied competitively over the past couple of seasons and has shown undiminished sensitivity in his handling of Expert Eye. There had been times when this colt appeared to be something really out of the ordinary, notably in explosive performances at Goodwood as a 2-year-old and at Royal Ascot this summer. But there had also been occasions when he threatened never quite to fulfil his deepest potential. When he banged his head on the gate in the G1 Dewhurst S., for instance, there was no doubt parallel concussion between various foreheads and desks at Juddmonte. But while plenty of observers wrote off the colt off after his defeat at Newbury in the spring, it actually augured very well that he was able to run as well as he did after racing so freely early. Stoute has subsequently excelled in easing the pin back into the grenade—and in waiting, for its ultimate detonation, for a race that always promised to play to his strengths. Credit, also, to the Juddmonte team for acknowledging, with a half-sister to a Classic winner, the transformation achieved over the years by the extraordinary Rathbarry stallion Acclamation (GB) (Royal Applause {GB}). Every horse, of course, owes half its genes to its dam and the sheer depth of genetic quality vested in the Juddmonte broodmares goes an awfully long way. But while the firm has exciting young sires of its own, on both sides of the ocean, they have also permitted outside stallions to amplify what they can do with the right partners—whether a veteran who has earned his stripes, like Acclamation, or a rookie like Nathaniel, who has confounded the idiocies of fashion by producing Enable from his very first crop. Stoute’s dexterity was complemented by the superb timing of Dettori—who replicated his ambush of Lady Eli (Divine Park) on Queen’s Trust (GB) (Dansili {GB}) in the Filly & Mare Turf two years ago. Up to that moment, it had begun to feel as though the raiders might have to start claiming credit for Chad Brown’s imported winners—whether bought at Tattersalls, or from a French stable. By thwarting Wild Illusion (GB) (Dubawi {Ire}) with Sistercharlie (Ire) (Myboycharlie {Ire}), Brown even reduced Charlie Appleby’s Breeders’ Cup record to three-for-six. The man’s obviously losing his touch, but Wild Illusion could not have represented him more honourably. And the same was true of Thunder Snow (Ire) (Helmet {Aus}) on behalf of Appleby’s Godolphin colleague Saeed bin Suroor when third in the Classic itself. Mendelssohn (Scat Daddy) did well to hold on for fifth, after again setting a manic early pace, but it was never happening for Roaring Lion (Kitten’s Joy), soon chased along on the inside and under a drive by halfway. He trailed in last, but the experiment will not have taken a cent off the value he had established, for his next career, in a series of lionhearted performances through a heavy campaign. It would be wrong, moreover, to treat his unpleasant experience here as a consideration when Europeans contemplate this race in future. As pertinent as anything, perhaps, is an interval of just two weeks since a gruelling race at Ascot and, while Magical deserves immense credit for running as well as she did on the same turnaround, perhaps Roaring Lion’s owners—who so generously underwrite the Ascot card—will ponder using their influence to do something about that. As it is, Thunder Snow and Mendelssohn both gave it their best shot after a contrastingly purposeful grounding in dirt racing. One way or another, however, it proved a frustrating meeting for the Ballydoyle cavalry. At Coolmore they have always grasped the dividends available by opening up a new market with success here; but the same is true of Juddmonte, whose Teddy Grimthorpe stressed that when you bring a horse here, you have to do it like you mean it—and not as some kind of whimsical afterthought. Grimthorpe also disclosed that the Breeders’ Cup is annually the first entry in the Prince’s diary. And that is something with which many of us can identify. View the full article

Jomo shows his mojo again - even in the wet View the full article

Kellady suspended for three days View the full article

Pennywise right back in the money View the full article

Can't see them, press Refresh View the full article

Nova Vocal bounces back to smashing form View the full article

Lim's Rhythm finally flows into first win View the full article

Silver Way goes all the way at maiden win View the full article

Horses' body weights November 4 View the full article

Horses' test results November 3 View the full article

Track conditions and course scratchings November 4 View the full article